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THE MYSTICISM OFJOHANN 

JOSEPH VON GORRES AS 

A REACTION AGAINST 

RATIONALISM 



BY 

Sister Mary Gonzaga, B.A., M.A., 

OF 

The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, 
Fort Wayne, Ind. 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic 

University of America in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of 

Philosophy 



Washington, 
1920 



THE MYSTICISM OFJOHANN 

JOSEPH VON GORRES AS^gg- 
A REACTION AGAINST 
RATIONALISM 



BY 

Sister Mary Gonzaga, B.A., M.A., 

OF 

The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ, 
Fort Wayne, Ind. 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of the Catholic 

University of America in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of 

Philosophy 



Washington, 
1920 



^ 3 






i 



* The Right Reverend William 
Turner, D.D., Bishop of Buffalo, 
N. Y.,- former Professor of Philos- 
ophy at this University, with deep admira- 
tion for his eminent, practical genius, and 
warmest gratitude for many proofs of his 
ever-ready personal kindness. 



CONTENTS. 

Preface 7 

Introduction 9 

Chapter I, Rationalism : Its Definition and Source ... 11 

Chapter II, Rationalism, Previous to Its Systematic 
Development 15 

Chapter III,History of Rationalism in Germany 35 

Chapter IV, Rationalism in Its Practical Bearing 55 

Chapter V, Reason and Faith 64 

Chapter VI, Reaction Against Nationalism : — The Ro- 
mantic Movement 71 

Chapter VII, Christian Mysticism and Romanticism 
in Their Relation to Gorres 82 

Chapter VIII, Life of Gorres, as Rooted in Christian 
Mysticism, in Its Struggle Against Rationalism. 92 

Chapter IX, Gorres' Die Christliche Mystik 140 

Chapter X, Influence of Gorres After His Death 157 

Conclusion, Philosophy: — Its Influence and the 
Masses 165 

Bibliography 168 



PREFACE. 

This dissertation owes its existence to the instigation 
of the Right Reverend William Turner, D.D., under 
whose direction the work was begun, and carried on, 
until his elevation to the Episcopal See of Buffalo, N. Y., 
March thirtieth, 1919. It was then continued and com- 
pleted under the kindly guidance of the Reverend P. J. 
McCormick, Ph.D. In her graduate work the writer's 
principal courses were those under the Very Reverend 
E. A. Pace, S. T. D., LL.D., and the Reverend J. J. Fox, 
S. T. D. The writer is happy to have this opportunity 
to express her deep appreciation of the work done under 
these professors. 

The writer, moreover, wishes to express her deep 
sense of gratitude to the Very Reverend T. E. Shields, 
LL.D., Dean of the Catholic Sisters College, for en- 
couragement and kindness throughout her four years of 
residence (1916-1920) at this Institution. Gratitude is 
also due, for kindness and helpfulness, to the Right Rev- 
erend Bishop T. J. Shahan, LL.D., Rector of the Univer- 
sity, and to many others. To her Community and her 
Parents she is in particular indebted for the special op- 
portunities and advantages of which this work is the cul- 
mination. 

The writer in no way pretends to have exhausted the 
theme. Yet she hopes, and is confident, to have rendered 
a service, however humble, to the Gorres-Research- 
Work, in the field of the Reactionary Movement against 
the destructive tendency of the Rationalism of the 
Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. That the times 
were not exactly favorable for the prosecution of the 



work, will, no doubt, be understood without further 
comment. 

Should these humble efforts be the means to increase 
the ranks of the Disciples *of Gorres in their following 
his noble endeavors of reinstating the Lord Jesus Christ 
in His place as the "Foundation Stone" of the "Whole of 
the Social Edifice" through a life of the nations "With 
God, Through Active Love", their aim has been fulfill- 
ed. TolleetLege! 



Washington, D. C., 
January 25, 1920. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Men often champion the cause of the Intellect, or the 
Feeling, or the Will, as if they were three rival powers 
contending for the supremacy over our lives. The unity 
of our personality is often lost sight of. Man is no more 
pure intellect than he is pure sentiment, or pure will. 
He is body and soul, and is endowed with the capacity to 
know, to love, and to will. 

The same power which gave man the above capacities 
gave him also the tendencies to satisfy them. The two 
tendencies that concern us here chiefly are to know and 
to love, and no one will deny that the need to love is 
greater than the need to know; for, indeed, man needs 
to know only in order to love since the latter encloses the 
secret of his happiness. Reason, as the princess, dwells 
in the highest room, but love is the power that inspires 
and saves, the source of light and life and warmth. A 
poet truly says, 

"The night has a thousand eyes, 

And the day but one; 
Yet the light of the whole world dies 

With the setting sun. 
The mind has a thousand eyes 

And the heart but one; 
But the light of the whole life dies 

When love is done." 1 

Look at music only through the understanding, and it 
becomes a dry logic of scientific terms and propositions ; 
but let both reason and heart have their play, and we 
see in it a living expression of order, a sensible represen- 
tation of that eternal harmony which all creation breath- 
ed forth, as a writer so beautifully puts it, when the 
morning stars first sang together, and which even now 



i Patrick, J. N., "Psychology for Teachers," New York, 1002, 
P. 289. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

to the listening spirit sounds fresh and solemn as when 
it first burst forth from the murmur and confusion of 
chaos. 

Peacefully, then, are mind and heart, thought and 
love, to exist together in one body, destined, as they are, 
to assist and help each other to bring about in the indi- 
vidual man that happy equilibrium which constitutes 
true culture, and, as to mankind at large, those glorious 
ages, spoken of in Don Quijote as, "Dichosa edad y siglos 
dichosos acquellos a quien los antiquos pusieron nombre 
de dorados" — "happy ages and happy centuries those to 
which the ancients gave the name of golden." 

Rationalism, basing itself, as it does, upon the so-call- 
ed scientific method and the method of doubt, destroyed 
this happy equilibrium of mind and heart, and thereby 
undermined the chief source of man's happiness and 
greatness. To show, then, the destructive tendency of 
Rationalism on the one hand, and the truly constructive 
tendency of Christian Mysticism, as represented by 
Gorres, on the other, shall be our main endeavor in the 
following pages. The bibliographies contain only such 
works as have been of immediate value in preparing this 
dissertation. 



Christmas-day, 1919. 



RATIONALISM : ITS DEFINITION AND ORIGIN 11 

CHAPTER I. 
RATIONALISM: ITS DEFINITION AND ORIGIN. 

In trying to obtain the meaning of Rationalism from 
the term itself, we find that it is directly derived from 
the Latin "rationalis", its root being ratio, reason. The 
term rationalis signifies what is conformable to reason, 
that which possesses the attributes and methods of rea- 
son. As for the barbarous part of the term, the-ism, 
this belongs to the Greek (— to-^os). It is derived from 
a verbal ending which cannot be expressed in Latin, 
namely — few which conveys the meaning, according 
to Rueckert, of being only apparently true. Rationalism, 
then, would mean not a system that possesses the quali- 
fications of being reasonable, yet which is to pass as 
such. 1 

On consulting the various authors for the proper 
meaning which Rationalism has acquired in history, one 
becomes hopelessly confused and amazed at the number 
of definitions placed at one's disposal. But from the re- 
sults it has produced, — the great overthrow of faith it 
has effected, and its influence upon the platform and the 
press of the countries invaded by it, it must be looked 
upon as a doctrine which plainly denies the existence and 
the possibility of a supernatural and immediate revela- 
tion from the Almighty, and maintains that to claim su- 
preme authority for any supposed supernatural religion 
is degrading to the dignity and the nature of man. It, 
therefore, enters into direct conflict with statements of 
the Old and the New Testament which clearly and un- 
mistakably assert the existence of a divine communica- 
tion. Rationalism, accordingly, openly challenges the 
credibility and veracity of Holy Scripture, and leaves us 
no alternative but to disbelieve the Bible as fabulous or 



i Cf. Hurst, J. F., "History of Rationalism," New York, 1906, 
p. 6 f. (note 3) ; also cf. "Encyclopedic des Sciences Religieuses," 
Tome XI, p. 112, article: Rationalisms 



12 RATIONALISM \ ITS DEFINITION AND ORIGIN 

to reject Rationalism as inconsistent with our rule of 
faith. 

In modem thought Rationalism has acquired the more 
special connotation as having but one principle, namely, 
the sufficiency of reason alone to explain the mysteries 
of the universe. In a wide and more extreme sense, the 
term is employed, in philosophy as well as in theology, 
for any system that sets up human reason as the final 
criterion and the chief source of knowledge. Such sys- 
tems are opposed to all doctrines which rest solely or 
ultimately upon external authority; the individual must 
investigate everything for himself and abandon any 
position, the reality of which cannot be rationally de- 
monstrated. 2 In this sense Rationalism is particularly 
synonymous with free-thinking. 3 

In the narrower theological sense, the term is 
especially used of the doctrines held by a school of Ger- 
man theologians and Biblical scholars who were promin- 
ent, roughly speaking, between 1740 and 1836, A. D. 
This Rationalism was a theological manifestation of the 
intellectual movement known as the "Enlightenment" 
( Aufklaerung) . It owed much to the English Deists 
and the French Esprits Forts who had already made vig- 
orous attacks on the supernatural origin of the Scrip- 
tures 4 , as we shall see later. 

Lecky defines Rationalism as "a system which would 
unite in one sublime synthesis all the past forms of hu- 
man belief, which accepts with triumphant alacrity each 
new development of science, having no stereotyped stan- 
dard to defend, and which represents the human mind 
as pursuing on the highest subjects a path of continual 
progress toward the fullest and most transcendent 
knowledge of the Deity It clusters around a series 



2 See Cohn, Jonas von, "Die Hauptformen des Rationalismus" 
(Philosophische Studien, Vol. 19), Leipzig, 1902, p. 74; also "En- 
cyclopedia Britannica," Vol. XXII, p. 916, article: Rationalism. 

3 Cf. Averling, Francis, "Catholic Encyclopedia," Vol. XII, p. 
653 (2), article: Rationalism; also Gauvin, M. J., Rationalism the 
Religion of Reason, Pittsburgh, 1916, p. 5. 

4 Cf. Rose, H. J., "State of Protestantism in Germany," Lon- 
don, 1829, pp. XXII-XXVI; also cf. Saintes, A., "Historie Critique 
du Rationalisme en Allemange," Paris, 1841, pp. 1-6. 



rationalism: its definition and origin 13 

of essentially Christian conceptions — equality, fratern- 
ity, the suppression of war, the elevation of the poor, the 
love of truth, and the diffusion of liberty. It revolves 
around the ideal of Christianity, and represents its 
spirit without its dogmatic system and its supernatural 
narratives. From both of these it unhesitatingly recoils, 
while deriving all its strength and nourishment from 
Christian ethics." 5 

In its positive meaning Rationalism signifies the 
Certitude of Principles which is acquired as a result of 
a direct intuition of the intellect. Taken in this sense it 
is opposed to empiricism, and denies that every form of 
knowledge can be reduced to experience. It admits the 
radical difference between the concrete and the abstract, 
and refuses to identify the universal with the collective. 
It asserts that the certitude of principles is not the direct 
result of experience, but of an intuition of the under- 
standing. In other words, Rationalism in its positive 
sense, is not opposed to the legitimate use of experience, 
but admits the certitude of principles transcending ex- 
perience. 6 

Simply considered as the rationalistic element in man, 
Rationalism is as old as man himself. Man may be said 
to be a born rationalist — a scrutinizer, a critic — by the 
very nature of his mind, as he is, according to Tertullian, 
for the same reason a born Christian, 7 — a born religion- 
ist, a born mystic. We meet this element in the garden 
of Eden in the argument between the Tempter and our 



5 Lecky, W. E. H., "History of the Rise and Influence of the 
Spirit of Rationalism in Europe," New York, 1891, Vol. I, pp. 182 
and 184. 

6 Cf. Dubray, C. A., "Introductory Philosophy," New York, 1913, 
P. 383- 

7 Cf. Apol. 17 : De Test, an. I and Anim. 41 141— Tertullian holds 
that the rational soul, created to the image and likeness of God, is 
illuminated by the Word, the Aoyos "that enlightens every man 
that comes into the world." That light may be obscured because 
it is not God, but it cannot be put out entirely because it is from 
God. Faber, in his "The Creator and the Creature," p. 34, says: 
"If Christianity were not true, the conduct of a wise man, who 
acted consistently as a creature who had a Creator, would 
strangely resemble the behavior of a Catholic Saint. The linea- 
ments of the Catholic type would be discernible on him though his 
gifts would not be the same." 



14 RATIONALISM : ITS DEFINITION AND ORIGIN 

First Parents. And the theogonies and cosmogonies of 
the ancients, what else* are they but attempts to ration- 
alize the mythical world and to explain the origin of the 
being supposed to govern occurrences in nature and in 
the life of man? 

Yet, no one will deny that to make a right use of the 
reasoning faculty is a difficult art. The proudest 
geniuses have fallen into errors in the matter of reason- 
ing. When the starting point is wrong, he who chooses 
it, will wander all the farther from truth the more vig- 
orously he reasons. 

In scanning the pages of the "History of Thought," 
we need not wonder, then, to find that not always the 
proper limits have been set to the powers of reason; — 
man's mind being finite, is fallible. In all ages we find 
men who knew how to assign to reason its proper sphere, 
while others fell short of, or stepped beyond, its line of 
demarcation, and more or less completely lost their way 
within the jungles of the intricacies and subtleties of 
thought. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 15 



CHAPTER II. 

RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO ITS SYSTEMATIC 
DEVELOPMENT. 

Speculative philosophy has its start, as far as the 
Western World is concerned, in Ancient Greece. In the 
development of Greek philosophy, there were two sepa- 
rate periods ; — a period of spontaneous creation in which 
the problem of the origin of things, the problem of becom- 
ing, dominates and a period of sceptical reflection and 
reproduction. It is the latter period, the Age of Critical 
Reflection, that is of interest to us. It was inaugurated 

by the -rravrmv fiirpov av6pta-rro<s of the Sophists, and 

evolved the hypothesis, foreshadowed by Zeno, Parmen- 
ides, and Anaxagoras, that the human understanding is 
a coefficient in the production of the phenomenon. He- 
raclitus had declared that all is change. Protagoras 
added: this change itself depends on our subjective state. 
The external world is a creation of the mind: and since 
two men may construct their world in contradictory 
ways, it follows that truth is relative and science im- 
possible. 8 Democritus had previously maintained that 
we cannot see atoms as they are, but we can think them, 
and that thought, by revealing the existence of invisible 
atoms, shows us the true nature of things. The scepti- 
cism of Protagoras, therefore, represents the conclusion 
of a syllogism of which the ■ ' iravra pel ' ' of Heraclitus 
forms the major, and the sensualism of Democritus, the 
minor premise. The sensible world is a perpetual meta- 
morphosis; the senses show only the things that pass 
away; they do not reveal the immutable, necessary, and 
universal. Hence, if we would know the truth, we must 



8 Protagoras and the other subjective Sophists, in inter- 
preting "avfyxoiros" do not mean man in general, but the indi- 
vidual, not the human understanding, but the understanding of 
each particular individual, and assume, in consequence, as many 
measures of the true and the false as there are individuals. Cf. 
Weber, A., "History of Philosophy," trans, by F. Thilly, New York, 
1896, p. 63. 



16 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

derive it from a better source than our deceptive senses ; 
we must appeal to reflection, to reason. But, according 
to Democritus, reflection is simply the continuation of 
sensation. Consequently, if sensation is changeable, un- 
certain, illusory, and is at the same time the only source 
of knowledge, it necessarily follows that all knowledge is 
uncertain. No one knows anything but his own sensa- 
tions. And as sensations differ for different individuals, 
it follows that there are as many truths as there are in- 
dividuals 9 ; that the individual is the measure of the true 

and the false (irdvTiov xPVI x ^ LTiOV /* €T P 0V avOpwos. tu>v fxkv ovtwv 

o»5 Ian, roiv 8 ovk Svtwv tbs ovk ccttiv^ ; that there are no 
universally valid truths or principles, or, at least, 
that we have no certain criterion by which to re- 
cognize the absolute truth of a metaphysical or moral 
proposition. The individual is the measure of the true 
and good. An act that benefits one man harms another ; 
it is good for the one, bad for the other. Practical truth, 
like theoretical truth, is a relative thing, a matter of 
taste, temperament, and education. Metaphysical con- 
troversies are, therefore, utterly vain. It is not possible 
for us to prove anything but the particular fact of sen- 
sation; still more impossible is it to know the causes or 
ultimate conditions of reality, which escape all sense- 
perception. Let man, therefore, occupy himself with the 
only accessible object, with himself, i. e., with the only 
problem of importance: — the question concerning the 
condition of happiness. 10 Here we have in essence, as it 
were, modern Rationalism, together with its logical con- 
sequences, thus verifying the statement that "a careful 
observation in the history of philosophy reveals the fact 
that a phase of thought which we had imagined to be a 
new departure, is but a superficial modification of older 
orders of ideas." 11 

The scepticism of Protagoras, now, and the other So- 
phists, forms the starting-point of the philosophy of 



9 Cf. foot-note 8, p. 15. 

10 Cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 60 ff. 

11 Cf. Sir Leslie Stephen, "History of English Thought in the 
Eighteenth Century," London, 1902, Vol. I, p. 3 (Introductory). 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 17 

Socrates in his method of teaching. All he knows is that 
he knows nothing; he is, furthermore, convinced that 
Certainty is impossible in the case of physical science. 
However, though he is a sceptic in cosmology, his scep- 
ticism does not extend to the field of morals. Here he is 
a rationalist, as such. In his identifying virtue with 
knowledge, however indefinite the answer might be to 
the question as to what should properly form the content 
of that knowledge of the good which constitutes virtue, 
Socrates was at all events convinced that this knowledge 
is in itself sufficient to cause one to do the good, and so 
bring happiness, — a proposition which may serve as a 
type of a wholly rationalistic conception of life. 12 

Plato is a rationalist in so far as he holds that the 
senses are deceptive and cannot yield us truth, — that the 
immutable does not exist in the world of sense but in the 
world of ideas. 13 

In Aristotle, we have the well-balanced reason: the 
union of the subjective and the objective elements and 
the belief in the continuity of the spiritual with the ma- 
terial, — a continuity which is, according to Dr. Turner, 
not incompatible with the distinction between matter 
and spirit. 14 

After Aristotle, Greek philosophy declined, never to 
rise again, as such, to the height it had attained under 
the Master of Thought of All Ages. This was due, in 
large measure, to external causes. The battle of 
Chaeronea (B. C. 338) put an end to the political inde- 
pendence of Greece. Henceforth her destinies were 
bound up with those of Macedonia, and later with those 
of the Roman Republic. National troubles weakened the 
synthetic power of the Greek mind; and the thinkers of 
the period, shrinking back within themselves, became 
solicitous chiefly for personal security. They likewise felt 
all the more keenly the pressing need of seeking the se- 
cret of happiness in philosophy alone, now that religious 



12 Cf. Windelband, W., "A History of Philosophy," trans, by 
James H. Tufts, New York, 1895, P- 79» 

13 See "Republic," VII. 

14 Turner, W., "History of Philosophy," New York, 1903, p. 196. 



18 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT. 

scepticism was naturally gaining ground day by day. 15 
For it is indeed true that a derogatory movement in 
thought is invariably followed by a derogatory move- 
ment in religion. The result was such contradictory 
systems as are Stoicism, Epicureanism, and, finally, the 
sceptical Pyrrhonism, with every evidence of a philo- 
sophical bankruptcy as we approach the Christian era. 

With Christianity a new principle was introduced into 
the Theory of Certitude, as well as into the moral order : 
— Faith. Faith, according to St. Paul, is not only an act 
of intellect by which it adheres to the preaching of the 
Gospel, but it is also a feeling, a sentiment of confidence, 
a need to love God; it is, moreover, an act of the will 
which renounces the life of the flesh, to live a divine life 
by communion with Christ. 16 Gorres, then, is indeed 
in accord with the "Apostle of Nations" when he speaks 
of Faith as a matter of the heart and "that dawning cer- 
titude which does not convince reason, but which is quite 
sufficient for it." 17 

The Coming of Christ, therefore, divides the history of 
philosophy as it divides the history of the world, In the 
systematic development of dogmatic truth the Church 
availed herself of the doctrines of philosophy and formu- 
lated her dogmas in the language of the schools of philoso- 
phy, in accordance with the law of continuity in history. 1 * 
And as the Greek mind, at its best, admitted the union of 
the subjective and objective elements in knowledge, and 
believed in the continuity of the spiritual with the ma- 
terial, so did Christian Philosophy, in the Golden Age of 
Medieval Philosophy, determine that Reason and Faith 
are at once distinct and continuous. 

From Christ onward there is found the religious and 



15 Cf. Wulf, M.De, "History of Medieval Philosophy" Ctrans- 
lated by O. Coffey), New York, 1909, p. 47. 

16 Cf. Galatians, Chapter 3:23-28. 

17 Schellberg, W., Josef von Gorres' "Ausgewahlte Werke und 
Briefe," Kempen and Munich, 1911, Vol. II, p. 69. — (Letter of May 
4, 1800, to Miss Lassaulx). 

18 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 655. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 19 

the rationalistic view of every question. Philosophy 
may profit by the teachings of religion; it may accept 
revelation as an extension of the horizon of human 
hopes, an opening up of new fields of human investiga- 
tion ; or it may, on the contrary, deny the special author- 
ity of Christian revelation; — it may cite the doctrines 
of Christ and His Church before the tribunal of reason, 
and pass sentence on them, denying the right of appeal 
to a higher court. Henceforth, then, there will be the 
religious attitude and the rationalistic attitude in the 
presence of the great problems which ancient philosophy 
discussed without reference to any source of knowledge 
superior to reason itself. There will be the Rationalist 
who refuses the aid of Christianity, and there will be the 
Religious Philosopher who accepts that aid; yet both 
must give reasons for such refusal or acceptance. 

But, although the rationalistic spirit and the religious 
spirit pervade the whole history of philosophy of the 
Christian era, they are not always present in equal pro- 
portion or in equal strength. From the first to the fif- 
teenth century the religious spirit prevailed, while from 
the fifteenth century onward, the rationalizing spirit 
dominated. However, there were rationalists in the first 
centuries, and there were religious-minded philosophers 
in the eighteenth and nineteenth, nor are both classes 
without representatives in our own days. The differ- 
ence on which the division is based is a difference in the 
spirit of the age, not in the character of individual phil- 
osophers. 19 

In the Patristic period it was Gnosticism which fur- 
nished the rationalistic element in its subordination of 
Revelation to Reason. The Gnostics recognized no mys- 
tery in the Christian sense of the word : — the gnosis, or 
esoteric doctrine, being merest subterfuge and Human 
Reason the really ultimate test of all truth, supernatural 
as well as natural. 20 



19 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 215 f. 

20 See, Neander, A., "The History of the Christian Religion and 
Church During the Three First Centuries" (trans, by H. J. Rose), 
Philadelphia, 1843, p. 238 ff. 



20 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

In the Middle Ages Rationalism takes on a tinge of 
theosophy. In opposition to Modern Rationalism, which 
tries in the name of Reason to brush aside as unreal the 
data of Christian Revelation, medieval rationalistic 
philosophy endeavored, also in the name of Reason, to 
prove to demonstration, as evidently true and real, these 
same revealed data in their full scope and meaning. 
Even mysteries, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, 
were claimed to be so accessible to human intelligence 
that it could establish them by demonstrative argument. 
Adopting the extreme deductive method, in imitation of 
Plato, Eriugena, for example, followed out this natural- 
istic interpretation of Christian dogma into all its small- 
est details. In common with the Gnostics he attached to 
the Scriptures and to the Fathers a symbolic sense, which 
was to be determined in the last resort by Reason, hold- 
ing, as he did, that man by Reason (ratio) knows the pri- 
mordial causes of things. Human thought, with him, is 
at bottom divine, since it follows the evolutions of the 
Divine Being. Nay more, human knowledge is limitless, 
for it is God Himself who thinks in man. The rights of 
Reason, consequently, are sovereign, both in regard to 
Nature and to Revelation. 21 

Abelard (1079-1142), by insisting exclusively on the 
"Intelligo ut credam," unduly emphasizes the same ele- 
ment. The principle that in order to believe we must 
first understand is by him equally extended to mean that 
Reason can comprehend even the mysteries of faith. The 
Greeks, he observed, had intuitions about the Blessed 
Trinity, as we know from the Platonic teaching about 
God, the vovs, and the world-soul, and teaches that the 
universal exists in the individual, and that it exists there 
alone. 22 

Roger Bacon (1214-1294) maintained the power of 



21 Cf. Wulf, op. cit., p. 170 ff. Cf. Huber, Johannes, "Johannes 
Scotus Erigena," Munich, 1861, p. 125 ff. 

22 Cf. Wulf, op. cit., pp. 191 and 193; also Uberweg, F., "His- 
tory of Philosophy" (translated by Geo. S. Morris), New York, 
1909, Vol. I, p. 387 ff. Consult also Abelard's "Theologia Christi- 
ana," Opera V, Cousin adjuvante C. Jourdan, Tomus Porterior, 
PP- 357-593- 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 21 

Reason still more explicitly, and with utmost insistence, 
while at the same time restricting it. He holds that the 
Intellectus Agens, which determines the passive intellect 
to elicit the act of "understanding," is not a part of the 
soul. It is the sun of our intelligences and illuminates 
them with its truth. And not only does he maintain that 
it is separate, but he explicitly identifies it with God. 
He, moreover, condemns all use of deductive reasoning, 
and even goes so far as to say that mathematical proof 
does not convince us unless it is confirmed by experi- 
ence. 23 

Ockam (1280-1349) equally, nay more so, restricts the 
powers of the human reason. The very first page of his 
"Theodicy" contains the statement that the Existence, 
Unity, and Infinity of God are indemonstrable by Reason 
and must derive all their certitude from Revelation. Nor 
can Reason demonstrate the immortality of the individual 
soul, since neither Reason nor Experience can prove that 
the principle of understanding is the substantial form of 
the human body. Whatever lies beyond the range of ex- 
perience is matter of Faith and not of Reason: — Rea- 
son, with him, must remain within the domain of facts. 
Nay more, as follower of Duns Scotus, 24 who is often 
called the "Kant of Scholastic Philosophy," Ockam main- 
tains, "that right and wrong depend on the will of 
God" — "Eo ipso quod voluntas divina hoc vult, ratio recta 
dictat quod est volendum" 25 — , and thus endangers the 
necessity and immutability of the principles of morality. 

Now, although Eriugena, Abelard, Roger Bacon, and 
Ockam, cannot be called rationalists in the modern sense 
of the word since they do not discard their belief in the 
supernatural order of truth, yet, by their over-emphasiz- 
ing the power of Reason and the empirical method, or by 
an undue restriction of the power of Reason, and by their 
captious quibbling, they must be looked upon as import- 
ant factors in preparing the way for the anti-Christian 



23 Cf. "Opus Tertium," Brewer's edition, London, 1859, p. 74; 
and "Opus Majus III," p. 47; and, ibid., II, p. 177 (Bridges' edition). 

24 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 388 ff. 

25 Cf. ibid., p. 407; also Wulf, op. cit., p. 420 ff. 



22 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT. 

philosophy of the Renaissance, of which modern Ration- 
alism was born. 

Men now were beginning to find fault with the old tra- 
ditions, the old language* and literature, the old law, the 
old theological systems, the old political relations of 
Church and State, the old authoritative religion. The 
Averroistic principle that "what is true in theology may 
be false in philosophy," and vice versa, introduced into 
Christian philosophy by Eriugena, gained more and 
more ground. Religion seemed to lose its restraining 
power, and moral depravity, sorcery, and occult science 
corrupted the true sense of the superiority of things 
spiritual, which characterized the Thirteenth Century. 
The spirit of reflection, which, after the time of the great 
Aquinas, came to busy itself with subtleties too refined 
to be grasped even by the learned, 20 joined hands with 
the learning of the East, and, thus strengthened, broke 
out in open revolt against authority and tradition in the 
revolt of nation against Church, of Reason against pre- 
scribed Truth, of the individual against the compulsion 
of ecclesiastical organization. The notion began to pre- 
vail that Reason is something to be won by free and im- 
partial inquiry and not something decreed by authority. 

In Italy, which was the earliest in developing this new 
spirit, the body politic had grown powerful, the cities 
had amassed great wealth, and civic liberty was wide- 
spread. Worldly pleasures became a strong factor in 
life, and freer play was given to sensory impulse. The 
transcendental unworldly concept of life, which had till 
then been dominant, now came into conflict with a mun- 
dane, human, and naturalistic view, which centered on 
nature and in man. Prototypes for these new ideas 
were found in antiquity, whose writers cherish and ex- 
toll the enjoyments of life, the claims of individuality, 
literary art and fame, the beauty of nature. Not that 
the return to classical letters had anything essentially 
evil in itself, nor the return to the cult of form and 
beauty and greatness, or the study of nature ; it was that 



26 Turner, op. cit., p. 423. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 23 

alongside of these studies and appreciations, the Chris- 
tian concept of life was set aside and that of ancient pa- 
ganism reintroduced. The ancient and pagan concept 
of life is based on the deification of nature itself, of 
physical nature and human nature. And as there is noth- 
ing above Nature and Reason, from the merely world- 
ly point of view, the means to the final good is the fol- 
lowing of nature. Sequere naturam! therefore became 
the watch-word of the Renaissance, and through the Re- 
naissance of Humanism, 27 the vehicle of the former's 
ideas. The tendency of the humanists was to admit 
nothing more than pure unalloyed Nature ; to reject per- 
emptorially whatever is above or beyond the sphere of 
Nature and the reach of the short span of Reason. Many 
of them were startled at the very utterance of the word 
supernatural, as something too imaginary, too arbitrary, 
too groundless, too absurd, to claim any serious atten- 
tion. 28 

This secular, inquiring, self-reliant spirit made itself 
especially felt in the universities. Padua and Bologna 
became the centers of free thought. A series of profes- 
sors, of whom Pomponatius (1462-1527) appears to 
have been the most eminent, pursued in these universi- 
ties speculations as daring as those of the eighteenth 
century, and habituated a small but able circle of schol- 
ars to examine theological questions with the most fear- 
less scrutiny. Not content with censuring what was 
deserving of censure in the degenerate Scholasticism of 
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they went so far 
as to condemn the entire system of Scholastic Philosophy. 
They maintained that there are two spheres of thought, 
the sphere of Reason and the sphere of Faith, and that 
these spheres are entirely distinct. As philosophers, and 
under the guidance of Reason, they elaborated theories 
of the boldest and most unflinching scepticism ; as Catho- 



27 See Loffler, Klemens, "Catholic Encyclopedia," Vol. VII, pp. 
538-542, article : Humanism. 

28 Cf. Baudrillart, A., "The Catholic Church, The Renaissance 
and Protestantism" (trans, by Mrs. Ph. Gibbs), New York, 1908, 
p. 15 ff. 



24 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

lies, and under the impulse of Faith, they acquiesced in 
all the doctrines of the Church. Pomponatius, for ex- 
ample, whose work "Tractatus de Immortalitate Ani- 
mae" (1516) has rightly been regarded as the intro- 
duction to the philosophy of the Renaissance, teaches that 
the philosopher with his reason seeks to draw right con- 
clusions from certain given premises, and that the re- 
sults, to which reason must arrive, are independent of 
the will of man. But with his will he may hold fast to a 
Faith for which his reason can afford him no grounds. 29 

Nor were the sciences slow to adopt the same princi- 
ple in their own respective fields. Rinaldo degli Albizzi, 
a celebrated politician of Florence, declared that Science 
and Faith were incompatible. 30 Marsilio Ficino, at the 
court of the Medici, and Pomponius Laetus at the Papal 
court, professed similar doctrines. 31 

It is not surprising, then, that the new spirit broke 
away from Theology and Church. And it was also quite 
natural that the value of the new ideal should be exag- 
gerated, while the medieval rational culture was under- 
valued. 32 

From Italy the movement made its way over the whole 
of Europe. And, as across the peninsula, so over the 
continent and the British Isles reverberated the cry "Se- 
quere Naturam !" To raise the humanity within oneself 
to the highest degree of intensity, to know all, to taste 
all, to experience all, — such is the moral that greets us 
from the reign of Humanism and the Renaissance, a law 
that is in marvellous concord with the aspirations and 



29 Cf. Lecky, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 370 f . ; also Turner, op. cit., p. 
426; also Hoffding, H., "A Brief History of Modern Philosophy" 
(trans, by C. F. Sanders), New York, 1912, p. 4 f. 

30 Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi," Vol. Ill, Chap. II, pp 
601-618, quoted by Pastor, "Introduction," History of the Popes, p. 
27 (English translation). Cf. also, ibid., Vol. V, p. 140 ff., attempts 
of the Humanists to restore pagan modes of thought and speech; 
also Baudrillart, op., cit., p. 19. 

31 Ibid., p. 19. See also "History of the Popes," op. cit., Vol. 
II, pp. 153 ff. and 122, and Vol. IV, p. 41 ff. 

32 Consult Burkhardt, J. C, "Die Kultur der Renaissance in 
Italien," Stuttgart, 1904: also Gebhart, Emile, "Les Origines de la 
Renaissance en Italie," Paris, 1879. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 25 

the lack of scruples to which the political and social con- 
ditions gave rise in the various countries, subsequent to 
the introduction of the destructive philosophy under 
question. 

The final outcome was that the endless controversies 
in Religion, Philosophy, and Science led many to doubt of 
the capacity of the mind to discover truth at all. The 
best known of the Renaissance sceptics is perhaps Michel 
de Montaigne (1533-1592), whose famous "Essays" 
are, from the point of view of philosophy, a mere rehash 
of ancient Pyrrhonism. The author entrenches himself 
in doubt, confining his speculations to the study of the 
ego. His motto, " 'Tis myself I paint/' or, as he says in 
the preface of the above work, "Je suis moi meme la ma- 
tiere de mon livre," typifies the new knowledge which he 
aimed to substitute for contemporary systems. 

As to human conceptions of religion, that one appears 
to Montaigne the most probable which recognizes God 
to be an incomprehensible power, the author and pre- 
server of all things, Who is only goodness and perfection 
and Who graciously accepts the homage which men pay 
Him, whatever be the form under which they conceive 
Him, and in whatever way they attest their veneration. 33 

Charron (1541-1603), in his famous treatise "De la 
Sagesse," follows in the footsteps of Montaigne, drawing 
at the same time on Seneca also : he admits the existence 
of Practical Certitude as a basis for morality, thus fall- 
ing back openly on Dogmatism. 34 The same may be said 
of the Portugese medieval doctor, Sanchez (1562- 
1632). The latter shows the insufficiency of the received 
systems, only to infer therefrom the necessity of a new 
Philosophy of Experience. 35 

This brings us to the inauguration of the so-called 
scientific method of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), who 
stands on the boundary line between the period of tran- 



33 Cf. Hoffding, H., "A History of Modern Philosophy" (Meyer's 
translation), London, 1900, Vol. I, p. 28. 

34 Cf. Falkenberg, R., "History of Modern Philosophy" (trans. 
by A. C. Armstrong, Jr.,) New York, 1893, p. 49 f. 

35 Cf. Wulf, op. cit., p. 484 f.; also Falkenberg, op. cit., p. 50. 



26 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

sition and the period of modern times. He stripped off 
from Natural Philosophy the theosophical character 
which it still bore during the transition period, 30 and 
limited it in his method to experiment and induction. 
He thus became the founder, not, indeed, of the empiri- 
cal method of natural investigation; this existed pre- 
vious to him, — being as old as man himself, and one of 
the chief characteristics of the Renaissance, as we have 
seen, — but of the empirical line of modern thought by 
which was brought about the separation of Science and 
Faith. 37 

Descartes (1596-1649) set Faith carefully aside alto- 
gether, and sought to know God, the soul, and matter, by 
the aid of Reason alone and the method of mathematics. 
He thereby entirely revolutionized theological methods,, 
as Bacon had done with methods in physics. Men, hence- 
forth, delighted, after the fashion of the French philoso- 
pher, to doubt the conclusions of theology and the teach- 
ings of tradition, and by the unaided efforts of Reason, 
as being a Criterion of Certitude to itself, to arrive at a 
knowledge of the existence and perfection of God. 

The first phase, then, of modern thought, is a Scienti- 
fic Rationalism (not a Scientific Philosophy, however) :-- 
an appeal to Reason, which takes its method and criterion 
from the new scientific inquiry whose remarkable results 
had been a revelation of what the mind of man can ac- 
complish. It was emphatically the Individual Reason 
testing everything by certain necessary principles which 
were supposed to reveal their truth directly to the indi- 
vidual in his isolation from the life, experience, and in- 
stitution of the race. Everything that did not approve 
itself with demonstrative certainty to these narrow and 
abstract principles came to be condemned. 

From Descartes onward, then, much against his own 
intention, destructive thought wended its way without 
obstruction. From his "Cogito, ergo sum," Gassendi 
(1592-1655) argued that existence can be concluded 



36 I. e., "The Renaissance and the Reformation. 

37 Cf. Ueberweg, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 33. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 27 

from any action. He sought to defend Epicureanism 
against unjustified attacks, as he calls it, and to show 
that it contains the best doctrine of physics, and yet at 
the same time to combine with it Christian Theology. 
He ascribed to the atoms force, even sensation. In his 
"Disquisitio Metaphysica," he says, "It remains to be 
proved that the faculty of thinking is so far removed 
above the corporal nature, that the animal spirits cannot 
receive such a character as to be rendered capable of 
thought." Concerning the union of mind and body, he 
says, "All union must be produced by the very close and 
intimate contact of the things united. But how could 
such a union take place without body?"* 8 

Keeping pace with this gross materialism, was scepti- 
cism. Following in the footsteps of Montaigne and 
Pierre Charron, Francois de la Mothe le Vayer (1586- 
1672) applied the arguments of the ancient sceptics 
especially to theology, limiting the latter to the sphere of 
simple faith. 39 Samuel Sorbiere (1616-1670) and Simon 
Foucher (1644-96), pupils of Vayer, carried on the work 
of their master. The former published a translation of 
"Sextus Empiricus," with notes and illustrations; while 
the latter revived the spirit of the new academy, and, 
with its anti-dogmatical principles, firmly opposed the 
religious view of Descartes and Malebranche. 40 Blaise 
Pascal (1623-62) in his Pensies, Art. XXI, maintains 
that nature confounds the Pyrrhonists, and reason the 
Dogmatists. Our inability to prove anything is such as 
no dogmatism can overcome, and we have an idea of the 
truth which no Pyrrhonism can overcome.* 1 

In Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) the principles of the fore- 



38 Cf. Morell, J. D., "An Historical and Critical View of the 
Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the Nineteenth Century," 
New York, 1849, p. 230 (note) ; also Lange, F. A., "Geschichte des 
Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart," 
Iserlohn, 1866, p. 118 f. 

39 Cf. Ueberweg, op. cit., II, p. 14 f. 

40 Consult Foucher, "Dissertations sur la Recherche de la Ve- 
rite," Paris, 1693; also "Dictionaire des Sciences Philosophiques — 
(Articles on these men). 

41 Cf. Ueberweg, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 54; also Morell, op. cit., p. 
106 f. ; also Stoeckl, A., "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philoso- 
phic," Mainz, 1875, p. 681. 



28 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

going men reach their climax. He asserts of human rea- 
son that it is powerful in the discovery of errors, how- 
ever latent, but weak in positive knowledge. He finally 
rests in the assurance that absolute truth is altogether 
indiscoverable, — that we must get as near to it as we can 
by criticizing and correcting the observations of those 
who sought it. Bayle made use of the early Protestant 
principle of the contradiction between Reason and Faith 
by representing the Orthodox System of Faith as an ab- 
solute absurdity, and is thus the precursor of the reli- 
gious criticists of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies. 4 - 1 

In England Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a friend of 
Lord Bacon and Gassendi, maintained similr. *wa to 
theirs. He looked upon the mind as wholly material, — 
the phenomena of consciousness being the direct result 
of our organization. The one great and fundamental 
fact of mind is sensation, which is nothing more or less 
than the effect of material objects around us, exerted by 
means of pressure or impact, upon that material organi- 
zation which we term the mind. He admits that the na- 
tural desire which we possess of investigating causes, 
leads us to attribute some vast and incomprehensible 
cause to the universe around us. However, since we can 
conceive of nothing which does not present itself to us 
as a sensuous image, it follows by necessity that we can 
have no real conception of a real Being, that infinity, in 
every form, is a mere negation. All is made, with 
Hobbes. to serve but a practical end for the security of 
life and sensual well-being 

Locke (1622-1704). on his part, introduced the mod- 
ern critical spirit. He declares it to be the subject and 
the aim of his "Essay Concerning Human Understand- 



'-'5 "Dictionaire Historique et Critique"; 
also article on Bayle in the "Encyclopedic, ou Dictionaire des Sci- 
ences, des Art?, et des Metiers (i73i-8o\ edited by Diderot and 
d'Alembert." Note the corresponding ideas between Kant and 
Bayle. See also Stockl. A.. "Geschichte der neueren Philoso- 
phic" Mainz. 1883. I. pp. 311, 313. and 315 f. ; also Haftner, Paul, 
"Grundlinien der Philosophic" Mainz, 188 1, p. 855 ff. 

43 Cf. Ueberweg. op. cit.. Vol. II, p. 39 f . ; also Morell, op. cit., 
p. 72 ff. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 29 

ing" to inquire into the origin, certainty, and extent of 
human knowledge, together with an exposition of the 
grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent. The 
sources of all our knowledge are partly sensation, or 
sensuous perception, and partly reflection, or internal 
perception. Through the external senses and the intern- 
al sense together, we obtain the idea of power and unity 
and other ideas. We know ourselves by internal percep- 
tion and God by inference. Transcending rational know- 
ledge is Faith in Divine Revelation, yet nothing can be re- 
garded as a revelation which is in contradiction with 
well-assertained rational knowledge. 44 

Taking his stand on the Lockian Empiricism, David 
Hume (1711-1776) transformed the latter, through his 
investigations, respecting the origin and application of 
the idea of causality, into a philosophy of scepticism. 
In him theological and philosophical scepticism are uni- 
ted : — the one means the rejection of the authority of re- 
vealed or dogmatic religion, and the other a distrust of 
the validity of the intellectual faculties and the authority 
of the human reason. He asserts that the causal idea, 
owing to its origin in habit, admits of use only within 
the field of experience; — to reason from data given em- 
pirically to that which is transcendent, like God and im- 
mortality, appears to Hume unlawful. He, moreover, 
argues that the "I" is a complex of ideas for which we 
have no right to posit a single substratum or underly- 
ing substance. His ethical principle goes no farther 
than the satisfaction or disapprobation of him who wit- 
nesses it. Owing to the natural sympathy of man for 
his fellows, an action performed in the interest of the 
common welfare, calls forth approbation, and one of an 
opposite nature, disapprobation. 45 

Hume's Scepticism was contemporaneous with the 
French Illumination, came under its influence, and, in 
turn, exerted an influence upon it. 



44 Cf. Ueberweg, op. cit., II, p. 78 ff. ; also Falkenberg, op. cit., 
pp. 154 ff. and 175 f. 

45 Cf. Weber, up. cit., p. 375 ff.; also Ueberweg, op. sit., II, p. 
131 ff. ; also Stockl, "Geschichte," op. cit., I, pp. 285 ff. and 294 ff. 



30 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT. 

Meanwhile another system, and one of the utmost im- 
portance in the history of Rationalism, had made its ap- 
pearance in Englancj and was fostered by and obtained 
its sustenance from the foregoing elements, namely 
Deism. The deification of Nature and Reason ; the philo- 
sophical doubt and rationalistic method of Descartes ; the 
spread of the critical and empirical spirit as exemplified 
in the philosophy of Locke; the wedge of private judg- 
ment that had been driven into authority and had al- 
ready split Protestantism into a great number of con- 
flicting sects : — all these things were factors in the pre- 
paration and arrangement of a stage upon which the full 
rehearsal of the case against Christianity might come 
forward and play its part. 

Because of the individualistic standpoint of independ- 
ent criticism which the Deists adopted, due, no doubt, in 
great part, to Spinozistic influence, as we shall see later, 
it is difficult, if not altogether impossible, to class to- 
gether the representative writers who contributed to the 
literature of English Deism as forming one definite 
school, or to group together the positive teachings con- 
tained in their writings as any one systematic expres- 
sion of a Concordant Philosophy. On the whole, however, 
Deism may be described as a movement to free religious 
thought from the control of authority. Its main thesis 
is that there is "universal natural religion," the principal 
tenet of which is "Believe in God and do your duty"; 
that positive religion is the creation of cunning rulers 
and crafty priests; that Christianity, in its original 
form, was a simple though perfect expression of natural 
religion ; and that whatever is positive in Christianity is 
useless and harmful accretion. 46 

Deism originated with Lord Herbert of Cherbury 
(1581-1648), an older contemporary of Hobbes. He 
founded a form of Rationalism, the basis of which was 
a Universal Religion, a religion of nature, formed by ab- 
straction from the positive religions, and regarded as 
containing the essential elements of all religion. He as- 



46 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 494. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 31 

sumes that all men agree in certain common notions 
(notitiae communes), and demands that these should 
serve as criteria in all religious disputes. 47 

The chief points and epochs of Deism were marked by 
Toland's "Christianity not Mysterious," 1696; Collin's 
"Discourse of Free-thinking", 1713 ; Tindal's "Christian- 
ity as Old as the Creation," 1730, and Chubb's "True 
Gospel of Jesus Christ," 1738. The first of these de- 
mands a Critique of Revelation, the second defends the 
Right of Free Investigation, the third declares the Reli- 
gion of Christ, which is merely a revived natural reli- 
gion, to be the oldest religion, the fourth reduces religion 
entirely to moral life. 48 

Thomas Woolston, in a work published in 1705 49 , put 
an allegorical interpretation upon the whole of the Bible, 
maintaining that the personages of the Old Testament 
are typical and not real; that the miracles of both, the 
Old and the New Testament, are only admirably con- 
trived allegories, and that the Gospel narratives are a 
tissue of absurdities. 50 

England during this time, now Protestant to the heart, 
was held up to the world as the Land of Free Thought, of 
Liberty, in a word, as the Model Land, and the teachings 
of her philosophers were hailed with general applause. 
Adoption of her principles was the next step. In France 
Bayle had prepared the way for it. It was in 1688 that 
Le Vassor t wrote : "People only speak of reason, good 
taste, the force of intellect, of the advantage of those who 
put themselves above the prejudices of education and of 



47 Cf. Falkenberg, op. cit., p. 79 f. 

48 Ibid., p. 187. 

49 "The Old Apology of the Truth of the Christian Religion 
Against the Jews and Gentiles Revised." London, 1705. 

50 See Woolston, T., "Six Discourses on the Miracles of Our 
Savior," 1727-30; Collins', "A Discourse of the Grounds and Rea- 
sons of the Christian Religion," 1724. (In the former miracles are 
given allegorical interpretation, and in the latter the same is ex- 
tended to the prophesies). Consult also Thorschmid, "Versuch 
einer vollstandigen Freidenker Bibliothek," Halle, 1765, 4 Vols.; 
Lechler, "Geschichte des englischen Deismus,"i84i ; Leslie Ste- 
phen, op. cit., 2 vols.; Guttler, "Eduard Lord Herbert von Cher- 
bury," 1897; Remusat, Cr. de, "Lord Herbert de Cherbury, Revue 
des deux mondes," VII, livre 4, 1854; Hunt, J., "History of Religi- 
ous Thought in England," London, 1870-73, 3 vols. 



32 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

the society in which they were born." 51 Voltaire (1694- 
1778) had thus no trouble in introducing Deism into 
France upon his return from England in 1729. By his 
many-sided receptivity he seemed, indeed, to be made to 
be the interpreter of English ideas, combining, as he did, 
in the words of Windelband, Newton's mechanical philo- 
sophy of nature, Locke's noetical empiricism, and 
Shaftesbury's moral philosophy under the Deistic point 
of view. A brilliant circle of Frenchmen gathered 
around him, who, from their connection with the new 
"Encyclopedia" 52 , which was to embody the knowledge 
that mankind had so far attained, were known as the 
Encyclopedists, or Uluminati, or Esprits Forts. 

Connected more or less closely with the above enter- 
prise were, besides Diderot and d'Alembert as chief edi- 
tors, d'Holbach, Turgot, Helvetius, d'Argent, de la 
Mettrie, Rousseau, and others. Their cry was, "Ecrasez 
I' infame!" meaning the Christian Religion, or Christ 
Himself. Ere long such works made their appearance 
as La Mettrie's "Histoire Naturelle de L'ame", 1745; 
"L'Homme Machine", 1748; '•'L'Homme Plante", 1748; 
"L'Art de Jouer", 1750. 53 Holbach in his "Systeme de 
la Nature", 1770, asserts religion and the tyranny of rul- 
ers, for whose authority religion is the great bulwark, to 
be the ground of all men's woes, and advocates the sub- 
stitution of nature, with its unbending laws, for God. 54 
As to Voltaire himself, we are told by Condorcet, his 
panegyrist, that he had taken the solemn oath "to devote 
his whole life to the work of destroying Christianity, and 
with it all positive religion." 55 



51 Hurst, op. cit., p. 117 f. 

52 The Encyclopedia, begun in 1751, heralded the French Illu- 
mination. See Falkenberg, op. cit., p. 241 ff. ; also Ueberweg, op. 
cit., p. 128 ff. 

53 Cabanis (1757-1808) explicitly taught that body and mind 
are identical, that the nerves are the man, and that thought is the 
secretion of the brain. Consult "Dictionaire des Sciences Philoso- 
phiques," article: Cabanis. 

54 Cf. Rogers, A. K., "A Student's History of Philosophy, New 
York, 1917, p. 396 ff. ; also Stockl, "Lehrbuch," op. cit., p. 718 ff. 

55 Alzog, J., "Universalgeschichte der christlichen Kirche," 
Mainz, 1843, p. 1067. Consult also Harvel., Voltaire, particularites 
curieuses de sa vie et de sa mort, Paris, 1817; also Ueberweg, op. 
cit., Vol. II, p. 125. 



RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 33 

Another system that exerted its influence on the de- 
velopment of Rationalism is Socinianism. Cast off from 
the Catholic soil of Italy in 1579, it took root and flour- 
ished in the Protestant communities of Poland, until 
1658, when its adherents were also expelled from there. 
The latter then found an asylum in Geneva, where, in the 
eighteenth century, their doctrines attained to a most 
rank luxuriance. 56 Their fundamental doctrines, as 
gathered from the "Catechism of Racow ,, (1584) and 
the writings of Faustus Socinus himself, the founder of 
the sect, which are collected in the "Bibliotheca Fratuum 
Polonorum", are as follows: The basis being private 
judgment, they rejected authority and insisted on the 
free use of reason, but did not reject revelation. The 
Bible, for Socinus, was everything, but it had to be inter- 
preted in the light of reason ; hence he and his followers 
rejected all mysteries. They, consequently, denied the 
Incarnation and the doctrine of the Trinity. Christ for 
them was the Logos, but they decried his pre-existence. 
He was the Word of God as being His (God's) interpre- 
ter (interpres divinae voluntatis). At the same time 
Christ was miraculously begotten: — He was a perfect 
man, He was the appointed mediator, but He was not 
God, only deified man, and in this sense He was to be 
adored. 57 

We are now prepared to turn to Germany, the country 
where Rationalism, as such, exerted its first and chief in- 
fluence 58 , and attained its highest development as a sys- 
tem, if we may call it such. 



56 In Germany the Socinians had, as early as the seventeenth 
century, a secret nursery in the University of Altdorf, belonging 
to the territory of the imperial city of Nuremberg. See Kurz, J. 
K., "Church History" (trans, by J. Macpherson), London, 1842, 
Vol. Ill, p. 68. 

57 Cf. Pope, Hugh, "Catholic Encyclopedia," Vol. XIV, pp. 113- 
115, article: Socinianism. See also Kirsch-Hergenrother, "Hand- 
buch der allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte," III, pp. 333-38; also 
Alzog, op. cit. (Mainz ed.), p. 880 f. ; also Wissowatius, "Religio 
rationalis," Amsterdam, 1703; also Schaff, Ph., "History of the 
Christian Church," New York, 1892, Vol. VII, p. 631 ff. ; also Moeh- 
ler, J. A., "Symbolism" (trans, by James B. Robertson), New York, 
1844, PP- 550-554; also Kurz, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 412-414). 

58 Cf. Staudlin, Carl Fr., "Geschichte des Rationalismus und 
Supranaturalismus," Goettingen, 1826, p. 300 f. 



34 RATIONALISM, PREVIOUS TO SYSTEMATIC DEVELOPMENT 

In taking a retrospect over the various elements that 
have been examined, and have a place in the foregoing 
pages, let it be noticed that while all have lent their aid 
towards the inauguration of the Era of Rationalism, 
none has exercised a greater influence than Deism. 
Deism, in so far as it finds both the source and the test 
of true religion in reason, is Rationalism ; in so far as it 
appeals from the supernatural light of revelation and in- 
spiration to the natural light of reason, it is Naturalism ; 
in so far as revelation and its records are not only not al- 
lowed to restrict rational criticism, but are made the 
chief object of criticism, its adherents are Freethinkers. 
These three elements now: Rationalism, as such, Natu- 
ralism, and Freethinking, we shall find to constitute, re- 
spectively, the very core of the three headings under 
which Rationalism shall be treated, for sake of conveni- 
ence, in the subsequent chapter, viz., — the Theological, 
the Philosophical, and the Historico-Critical. The first 
begins with Kant, the second with Wolff, and the third 
with Cocceius. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 35 

CHAPTER III. 
HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY. 

In the latter part of the preceding chapter we have 
seen how from Francis Bacon and Descartes onward, 
men learned to question everything, to seek new know- 
ledge by actual experiment, to think boldly. Seeing and 
thinking for oneself were the twin principles of the new 
method. The results in the field of science were great. 
Never before had there been such opportunity to learn. 
Discovery followed upon discovery, invention upon in- 
vention, and it seemed indeed as if the Golden Age was 
dawning. The human mind seemed to be awakening 
from the slumber of centuries to conquer the world, to 
unravel the mysteries of life, and to discover the secrets 
of the universe. Confident that only a little more 
thought was needed to free the world from vice, ignor- 
ance, and superstition, thinkers turned more boldly than 
ever to attack the vexing problems of religion and moral- 
ity, to criticize state, society, and church, and to point 
the way to a new and earthly paradise. We styled this 
tendency, this enthusiasm, RATIONALISM, since its 
champions sought to make everything rational or rea- 
sonable. The movement started in Italy, whence it made 
its way into England to be systematized in part by 
Bacon, then to France to receive its completion through 
Descartes. Returning to England it was patronized and 
evolved by Hobbes, Locke, and the Deists, and ended in 
the scepticism of Hume. In France, proceeding in a 
straight line from Descartes, and receiving, in return, 
fresh impulse and vigor from across the Channel, it 
came to be fostered and demonstrated by such men as 
Bayle, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and many others. 
The principles propagated may be thus combined: 

1. Admiration for experimental science. 

2. An exalted opinion of man's ability to reason out 
the natural laws which were supposed to lie at the base 
of human nature, religion, society, the state, and the uni- 
verse in general. 



36 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

3. The instituting of a natural religion in place of re- 
vealed religion. God was pushed farther and farther in- 
to the distance as the mere starter of the universal ma- 
chine, to be finally done away with altogether. 

4. After being used as an instrument for getting rid 
of other beliefs, Reason itself began to be called into 
question. 

The Idealistic Movement now arises, represented by 
Leibniz and Berkeley, partly as an essay to remove the 
antithesis between mind and matter, and partly, nay 
especially so, as an attempt to restore the aesthetic and 
religious ideals which were threatened by the first em- 
piricists and destroyed by the atheists and materialistic 
empiricists of their own time. 59 And we shall find that 
just as the Realism of the eighteenth century culminated 
in the Materialistic Enlightenment of France, so the 
series of Idealistic Systems culminated in the Rationalis- 
tic Enlightenment of Germany. However, as much as 
this latter movement owes to Leibniz, he is not the only 
parent, nor are Wolff or Kant, — inspirations being 
drawn as much from England and France as from them, 
and especially also from Spinoza. 

In turning our attention to Leibniz (1646-1716), we 
find that with him, as it had been with Descartes, philo- 
sophy was a kind of mathematics. Geometry, with its 
few initial axioms and its wealth of analytically derived 
theorems, was especially fascinating to this early disciple 
of an original geometrician and himself an extender of 
geometric methods. Why should not the same processes 
be extended to the whole realm of knowledge? — was a 
most natural question with Leibniz. 60 

Leibniz's problem was to combine the truths of Rea- 
son and the truths of Fact into a logical whole, — into one 
great Rationalistic System. He held that there are two 
kinds of human cognition: that of intuition, which ap- 
plies to truths that are self-evident, such as the fact of 
identity; and that of fact, or content. Thus, that John 
is John, is evident, while the content of John consists of 



59 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 505 f. 

60 Cf. Holmes, A., "The Decay of Rationalism," Philadelphia, 
1916, Sec. I (Introduction). 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 37 

facts to be proved. Leibniz makes a distinction between 
the analytical and the synthetical sciences, and main- 
tains that by the application of the "Sufficient Reason" 
the highest sciences, which are synthetical, can be placed 
on as solid a basis of truth as those which are merely 
analytical. In his Monadology, the atoms of Democritus, 
which were material, became spiritual, self-determined 
beings, the highest of which is God. These atoms, Leib- 
niz says have neither parts, extension, nor figure. They 
are but force centers, for substance can only be conceiv- 
ed of, in its ultimate analysis, as force. Space, matter, 
and motion are merely phenomena. The greater the 
amount of activity or power of perception, the higher 
and more perfect is the monad. No two monads are 
alike, yet they are all in harmony and so constituted as 
to form one universe, with God as its efficient cause and 
the establisher of this harmony, which results in the ex- 
istence of the best possible world. And while he holds 
the monads of the body and the monads of the soul 
to be of different orders, he explains their communication 
with each other by the rule of what he calls Pre-estab- 
lished Harmony * x 

Christian Wolff (1679-1754) endeavored to present 
the philosophy of Leibniz intelligibly to the ordinary 
mind. Adopting the latter's theories, he combined them 
with ideas derived directly from Aristotle, modified 
them partially, systematized them, and provided them 
with demonstrations whereby to render them compre- 
hensive. In his attempt to do so, he kept on forcing the 
preliminary assumptions of knowledge further and 
further back, and converted the whole reality more and 
more into rational equations, while practically restoring 
the Cartesian anthithesis of mind and matter. He re- 
jected altogether the idea that the lower order of monads 
have any undeveloped power of perception, and thus 
made a decided difference between matter and mind in 
their real essence. Moreover, instead of viewing the 
theory of Pre-established Harmony in its universal bear- 



61 Cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 354 ff.; also cf. Wilson, Epiphanius, 
Article: Leibniz, Gottfried, Wilhelm, Americana, Vol. IX. 



36 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

3. The instituting of a natural religion in place of re- 
vealed religion. God was pushed farther and farther in- 
to the distance as the mere starter of the universal ma- 
chine, to be finally done away with altogether. 

4. After being used as an instrument for getting rid 
of other beliefs, Reason itself began to be called into 
question. 

The Idealistic Movement now arises, represented by 
Leibniz and Berkeley, partly as an essay to remove the 
antithesis between mind and matter, and partly, nay 
especially so, as an attempt to restore the aesthetic and 
religious ideals which were threatened by the first em- 
piricists and destroyed by the atheists and materialistic 
empiricists of their own time. 59 And we shall find that 
just as the Realism of the eighteenth century culminated 
in the Materialistic Enlightenment of France, so the 
series of Idealistic Systems culminated in the Rationalis- 
tic Enlightenment of Germany. However, as much as 
this latter movement owes to Leibniz, he is not the onlj T 
parent, nor are Wolff or Kant, — inspirations being 
drawn as much from England and France as from them, 
and especially also from Spinoza. 

In turning our attention to Leibniz (1646-1716), we 
find that with him, as it had been with Descartes, philo- 
sophy was a kind of mathematics. Geometry, with its 
few initial axioms and its wealth of analytically derived 
theorems, was especially fascinating to this early disciple 
of an original geometrician and himself an extender of 
geometric methods. Why should not the same processes 
be extended to the whole realm of knowledge? — was a 
most natural question with Leibniz. 60 

Leibniz's problem was to combine the truths of Rea- 
son and the truths of Fact into a logical whole, — into one 
great Rationalistic System. He held that there are two 
kinds of human cognition: that of intuition, which ap- 
plies to truths that are self-evident, such as the fact of 
identity; and that of fact, or content. Thus, that John 
is John, is evident, while the content of John consists of 



59 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 505 f. 

60 Cf. Holmes, A., "The Decay of Rationalism," Philadelphia, 
1916, Sec. I (Introduction). 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 37 

facts to be proved. Leibniz makes a distinction between 
the analytical and the synthetical sciences, and main- 
tains that by the application of the "Sufficient Reason" 
the highest sciences, which are synthetical, can be placed 
on as solid a basis of truth as those which are merely 
analytical. In his Monadology, the atoms of Democritus, 
which were material, became spiritual, self-determined 
beings, the highest of which is God. These atoms, Leib- 
niz says have neither parts, extension, nor figure. They 
are but force centers, for substance can only be conceiv- 
ed of, in its ultimate analysis, as force. Space, matter, 
and motion are merely phenomena. The greater the 
amount of activity or power of perception, the higher 
and more perfect is the monad. No two monads are 
alike, yet they are all in harmony and so constituted as 
to form one universe, with God as its efficient cause and 
the establisher of this harmony, which results in the ex- 
istence of the best possible world. And while he holds 
the monads of the body and the monads of the soul 
to be of different orders, he explains their communication 
with each other by the rule of what he calls Pre-estab- 
lished Harmony. 61 

Christian Wolff (1679-1754) endeavored to present 
the philosophy of Leibniz intelligibly to the ordinary 
mind. Adopting the latter's theories, he combined them 
with ideas derived directly from Aristotle, modified 
them partially, systematized them, and provided them 
with demonstrations whereby to render them compre- 
hensive. In his attempt to do so, he kept on forcing the 
preliminary assumptions of knowledge further and 
further back, and converted the whole reality more and 
more into rational equations, while practically restoring 
the Cartesian anthithesis of mind and matter. He re- 
jected altogether the idea that the lower order of monads 
have any undeveloped power of perception, and thus 
made a decided difference between matter and mind in 
their real essence. Moreover, instead of viewing the 
theory of Pre-established Harmony in its universal bear- 



61 Cf. Weber, op. cit., p. 354 ff. ; also cf. Wilson, Epiphanius, 
Article: Leibniz, Gottfried, Wilhelm, Americana, Vol. IX. 



40 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

Rational Worshippers of God." 69 Fragments of this 
work, which was kept secret during the author's life, 
were published by Lessing from 1774 onward. Their 
very titles reveal their character: — "On the Disparage- 
ment of Human Reason by Preachers" ; "On the Impro- 
bability of the Passage of the Israelites through the Red 
Sea" ; "On the Old Testament — not written as a religious 
revelation"; "On the Falsity of the Resurrection", and 
so on. It is to be noted that the religious belief con- 
tained in these Fragments, is not that of Lessing, as is 
often held. Lessing's aim in publishing these articles 
was to get the people thoroughly disgusted with the 
Wolffian philosophy. When he had accomplished his 
end, he showed his true colors, and raised the cry, loud 
and clear, against its longer existence, and in his works, 
"Nathan the Wise" and "Education of the Human 
Race", 70 strongly advocated a positive religion. With all 
the force of his rare logical power he opposed the at- 
tempt of the Rationalists to substitute the Intuitions of 
Reason for the dictates of the heart and the promptings 
of faith. "In the matter of religion", says he, "the heart 
has a work to do no less than the reason". Lessing's 
mistake, however, was his maintaining that the truths of 
religion have nothing to do with the "facts of history", — 
that Religion existed before there was a Bible. The 
Christian Religion is not true because Evangelists and 
Apostles taught it; but they taught it because it is true. 
Indeed, if that were so, the entire Scripture might be 
abolished without doing violence to Religion. Lessing 
thus, unhappily, although he arrayed himself against 
Rationalism, proved himself one of its strongest promo- 
ters. Yet, the Wolffian philosophy had seen the days of 
its ascendency, and had to make room for Kant. 

This, then, brings us to the so-called Theological Ra- 



60 Consult Strauss, D. F., Pr., "Raimarus und seine Schutz- 
schrift," Leipzig, 1862 (included in fifth volume of his "Gesam- 
melte Schriften.") Cf. also "Freiburg Ecclesiastical Encyclopedia," 
Article: "Fragments." (The original work is still to be found in 
the Hamburg library). 

70 "Nathan the Wise," translated by Ellen Frothingham, 1867; 
"Education of the Human Race," London, 1858. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 41 

tionalism which demonstrates the whole rationalistic 
system from principles in a theological manner, and con- 
structs a new theology in which everything of a super- 
natural kind is denied, and finds no place. It declares 
the Religion of Reason to be the only true one. Revealed 
Religion, according to this system, can and ought to be 
nought else but a mere vehicle for the easier introduction 
of rational religion: — the ecclesiastical faith will by de- 
grees become extinct and give place to a pure religion of 
reason, evident alike to all the world. In conformity 
with these principles, a new rule was set up for the in- 
terpretation of Scripture equivalent to "that nothing 
was to be looked for in the Bible, save a mere religion of 
reason", and that everything else was to be regarded as 
a mere veil, or as an accommodation to the popular no- 
tion of the time, or as the private opinion of the respect- 
ive sacred writer. 

The origin of the Theological Rationalism may be 
sought for in Wolff's rational theology, as well as in the 
assertion of Spinoza, that the Bible is not to be interpre- 
ted so as to agree with human reason, nor is reason to be 
made subject to the teaching of the Bible : the Bible does 
not pretend to reveal natural law, but to exhibit laws of 
ethics. By the adoption of this principle, Spinoza makes 
it possible to treat the Bible, and especially the Old Tes- 
tament, historically and critically, unhampered by dog- 
matic conditions. In his "Ethica Ordine Geometrico De- 
monstrata" (1677), as the very title of the book indi- 
cates, Spinoza applies the rigid method of Euclidean 
geometry to the examination of abstract truths. He sets 
out with definitions, axioms, and postulates, and advan- 
ces through theorem, demonstration, corollary, and 
scholium to the establishment of the ultimate nature of 
reality and the ternal standard of human conduct: 
Spinoza is thus really in full support of the various ra- 
tionalistic systems, including Deism, as previously out- 
lined, and so also of the Rationalism of Kant. The real 
founder of Theological Rationalism, however, is the 
latter, as are Wolff and Cocceius of the other two sys- 
tems, respectively. 



42 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

Kant (1724-1804), dissatisfied with the dogmatism of 
Wolff, the empiricism of Locke, as well as with the scep- 
ticism of Hume, undertook to investigate the field of 
metaphysics for himself. In his "Critique of Pure Rea- 
son" (1781), he aimed to establish a system of an abso- 
lute a priori knowledge, or knowledge of pure reason, 
holding that what is necessary and universal in our 
knowledge must be a priori. According to him, part of 
our knowledge is knowledge d priori, or original, trans- 
cendental, and independent of experience ; part of it is a 
posteriori, or based on experience. What he calls pure 
reason has to do with the former. In the first rank of 
such ideas as we do not derive from experience are space 
and time. Kant shows that all our perceptions are sub- 
mitted to these two forms, hence he concludes that they 
are within us, and not in the objects; they are necessary 
and pure intuitions of the internal sense. The fact that 
objects really exist, comes from themselves and is known 
by the direct intuition of the senses, but the different 
forms and aspects they assume, are produced by our own 
subjective faculties or laws of thought. Man's nature, 
therefore, is the real creator of man's world. "It isn't 
the external world, as such", says Kant, '-that is the deep- 
est truth for us all ; it is the inner structure of the human 
spirit which merely expresses itself in the visible world 
about us". :: Kant ends in stating that problems of the 
noumenal, or supernatural world, such as the immateri- 
ality, immortality, and individuality of the soul, the be- 
ing of God as an objective reality, etc.. can neither be 
proved nor disapproved : that they are objects lying alto- 
gether beyond the limits of human reason. 

Kant then proceeds to find a positive ground of cer- 
tainty for supernatural realities in the "Critique of 
Practical Reason" (1788). And since Kant, above all, 
aimed at giving a positive value to the moral principle, 
as a reaction against the Popular Philosophy, which de- 
graded virtue by making it. not something valuable for 



71 Royce, J., "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy," New York, 
1899, p. 34. Cf. also Fischer. E. L., "Triumph der Christlichen Phi- 
losophic," Mainz, 1900, pp. 21 and 23. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 43 

its own sake, but only a means of acquiring happiness, 
he makes it his endeavor in this Critique to let the whole 
question of Human Destiny, with everything implied in 
it, find a meaning and a reality in our moral nature. 
Holding on to the a priori element, Kant assumes that 
consciousness reveals to us the autonomy of the will, and 
this autonomy expresses itself in an absolute moral law, 
in a categorical imperative. The fundamental differen- 
ces between right and wrong are stamped upon the mind 
and may be taken as the ultimate tests of all ethical 
teaching. The intuition by which we know what is right 
and what is wrong is clearer than any claim of historic 
reasoning. 72 The moral conscience, then, with Kant, is 
the true basis upon which our conviction of the objective 
reality of a supreme moral law and of an all-sovereign 
good, which is the object of this law, can alone rest. 

In his work entitled "Religion within the Limits of 
Pure Reason" (1793), Kant next applies to the Church 
and to the Christian dogmas his purely rational concep- 
tions, and bases them solely on the moral law, to the ex- 
clusion of all metaphysics. Religion here is only an aid 
to morality, and Christianity a school of morals. Practi- 
cal reason, i. e. reason within the limits of experience, 
is the only source of religion because it is the basis of the 
moral law, which in its turn, unlike dogmatic truths, is 
alone demonstrable by reason, and should therefore be 
universally accepted. 73 Thus Kant, who had been reared 
a pietist and wanted to save his religious opinions, his 
vigorous morality, from the danger of Criticism, shifted 
the whole burden of religion on to Practical Reason. 

The ablest defenders after Kant, of this system, were 
Reinhold, Teller, Eckermann, Henke, and Tief trunk; and 
later on Roehr, Wegscheider, and Paulus. These men 
completely ignored the historical character of Divine 
Revelation. The one aim of their exegetics and of their 
enlightened psychology seems to have been to strip 



72 Compare with the above Bayle's "Dictionaire Philosophique, 
Part I, Chap. 5. 

73 Cf. Stockl, "Geschichte," op. cit., Book II, p. 55 ff.; also Ue~ 
berweg, op. cit., II, p. 181. 



44 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

Christianity of all speculative depth whatsoever and dog- 
matic truth of all certitude. 

The Historico-Critical Rationalism, finally, has its ori- 
gin in the department of Biblical exegesis itself. After 
the Peace of Westphalia, it was found that the bulk of 
the people of Protestant Europe had given up all faith in 
the Church as a teacher of divine truth. Neither did 
they any longer believe, with the first reformers, that 
the Sacred Books were inspired. Hence the more 
weighty theologians, in accordance with the Spinozistic 
principle, previously stated, set up a more liberal and 
independent exposition of Christianity, thereby adjust- 
ing it to the new spirit now predominant in Biblical 
studies. The movement began with J. Cocceius (Koch), 
who, born in Bremen in 1603, became, in 1649, head of 
the theological chair of the University of Leiden. 
Cocceius was a Cartesian in his views on Reason, but 
differs from Descartes in that the latter based his sys- 
tem on Reason alone, while Cocceius had his rest upon 
the Scriptures. He made Intellect the interpreter of 
Scripture in this sense that since the words of the Bible 
are capable of many meanings (notice here the Spino- 
zistic influence), Reason must decide which are proper 
and which improper, and not neglect to derive as much 
thought as possible from the Sacred Text; "for" said he, 
"Scripture is so rich that an able expositor will bring 
more than one sense out of it/' 74 

Grotius (1583-1645) was also in favor of this method 



74 Hurst, op. cit., p. 339 f . ; see also Werner, K., "Geschichte der 
apologetischen und polemischen Literatur der christlichen The- 
ologie," Schafihausen, 1867, Vol. V, p. 143. (Notice influence pt 
Cocceius on English deists, or vice versa). See also Kurz, op. cit., 
Vol. Ill, p. 54 ff. No doubt the movement begun by Cocceius had 
also much to do with the Pietistic movement which arose at the 
same time for the purpose of introducing into the Reformed 
Churches more practical Christianity, in opposition to the undue 
enhancement of the value of mere orthodoxy, as brought about by 
the "Synod of Dort," which held its sessions in 1618-1619, for es- 
tablishing a standard of orthodoxy. The leaders of the movement 
were Gisbert Voet ( + 1676), a professor, Jodocus von Loden- 
steyn ( + 1677), a preacher of Utrecht, and John de Labadie 
( + 1676), of Altona. Ph. J. Spener introduced it into Lutheran 
Germany, beginning his work at Frankfurt, a/M, in 1670. Cf. ibid 1 ., 
Vol. Ill, pp. 41 f. and 104 ff. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 45 

of interpretation. The religious standpoint he takes in 
his "Annotationes in Novum Testamentum", Amster- 
dam, 1641 sq., and "Annotationes Vetus Testamentum", 
Paris, 1644, is a wavering one: — retention in principle 
of faith in revelation, combined with an actual approxi- 
mation to that critico-historical and rationalistic style of 
treatment which is incompatible with the continued exis- 
tence of such faith. 75 Wetstein (1754), the Armenian, 
who, having been banished from his native city, Basle, 
lived then in exile in the Netherlands, also zealously ad- 
vocated the movement. 78 

The first advocate of a free interpretation of the Bible 
in Germany was J. A. Ernesti (+1781), at Leipzig. 
Ernesti was the classic scholar of his day. Enamored 
with the old classic times, with the atmosphere of Greece 
in her glory of taste and culture and of Rome in her 
lustre of victory and law, he came to be impatient of the 
dull theology of his day. He examined the New Testa- 
ment with a critic's scalpel, and applied the principle of 
ordinary interpretation to the word of God. He held 
that Moses should receive no better treatment than 
Cicero or Tacitus. Logos was reason and wisdom with 
the Greeks ; why should it mean Christ or the Word when 
we find it in the Gospel of John, 77 etc. 

What Ernesti wrought against the New Testament, 
had its counterpart in what J. D. Michaelis (1791), at 
Gottingen, effected against the Old. He was profoundly 
learned in the Oriental languages, but was a reckless and 
irreverent critic, and made light of many of the occur- 
rences of the Old Testament. He carried Ernesti's prin- 
ciple a step farther, by asserting that it is necessary not 
only to understand the situation and the circumstances 
of the writer and the people of the time in which the 
books were written, and the language and history of the 
time, but also all things connected with their moral and 
physical character. And the critic must, moreover, be 



75 Consult Grotius, Hugo, "Opera omnia theologia." 

76 Cf. Alzog, op. cit. (Cincinnati ed.), Vol. Ill, p. 598 f. ; also 
Werner, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 306 f. 

77 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 126 f. 



46 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

conversant with everything relating to those nations 
with whom the Jews associated, and know just how far 
the latter received their opinions and customs from 
abroad. 78 

Among the Church historians S. J. Semler (+1791), at 
Halle, a pupil of Baumgarten (1714-1762), followed the 
above lines of thought. In him we have the father of the 
most vulgar kind of Rationalism, which prevailed from 
about 1790-1810. Semler studied the Scriptures while 
laboring under the conviction that people worship the 
Bible instead of the Universal Father; and he seemed to 
say within himself: "I will destroy this vain idolatry, 
and if it takes bread from my wife and children ; nay, if 
life be lost in the effort". He began to examine the 
merits of each part of the Bible, and to determine what 
is the proof of the inspiration of a book. He decided 
this to be the inward conviction of our mind "that what 
it conveys to us is truth". By his famous "Accommoda- 
tion Theory" he maintained that Christ and His Apostles 
taught doctrines of such nature and by such method as 
were compatible with the peculiarities of their condition. 
Christ's utterances concerning angels and demons, the 
second coming of the Messiah, the last judgment, resur- 
rection of the dead, and inspiration of the Scripture, all 
were reduced to so many accommodations to prevailing 
errors. 79 Nor did Semler stop here, but directed his 
endeavors also against the history and the doctrinal 
authority of the Church. So persistent were his efforts 
against her traditional authority that they endangered 
the very foundations of Protestantism. 80 Together with 
the English Deists he held that the Bible is but the re- 
publication of the religion of nature ; that the world has 
been taught religion long before the Scriptures were 
written, though he confessed that in them we find it 



78 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 127 f. 

79 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 130. See also Werner, op. cit., pp. 11, 
25, 13 f., 147, 354, 421. Amongst those making free use of Semler's 
"Accommodation Theory" may be named Vogel and Senf. 

80 Cf. Ibid., p. 11; also Hurst, op. cit., p. 132 f. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 47 

more clearly stated and more rigidly enjoined than any- 
where else. 81 

The adherents and followers of Semler carried the 
work farther still. Commencing with his denial of in- 
spiration, they attempted the annihilation of Revelation 
itself. Griesbach, Edelmann, and Bahrdt pursued their 
skeptical investigations for the purpose of reducing all 
positive religions to natural religion. 

Bahrdt especially brought dishonor upon his sacred 
vocation. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of 
England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German 
Protestantism. Seizing the pen, he invaded the sanctity 
of every doctrine that stood in the way of his theories. 
In his travesty of the New Testament, also entitled "The 
Newest Instructions From God Through Jesus Christ 
and His Apostles", he made every item subserve his 
whims. He converted dialogue into parable, and made 
any passage, however grave in import, minister to his 
purpose. Hurst speaks of his doctrine as the "German 
crystallization of all the worst elements of French 
scepticism". 82 

Others that exerted themselves in this field were Mo- 
rus, the pupil of Ernesti, and Koppe and Eichhorn, the 



81 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 132. Notice the influence of Herder 
(1744-1803) on Semler. Herder was teaching, and so was Tolner, 
that the purer source of revelation lies rather in the written than 
in the traditional word, and, furthermore, made a distinction be- 
tween the Word of God contained in the Bible and the Bible itself. 
This distinction in itself had to lead inevitably to the destruction 
of the rigid view of inspiration. 

82 Cf. ibid., pp. 142 and 139 ff. See also Stockl, "Lehrbuch," 
op. cit., p. 745. Bahrdt compares well with Richard Simon (1638- 
1712) from whose pen came forth "U histoire critique du vieux 
Testament," Dieppe, 1678, which, among other things, derisively 
impugnes the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; "L' histoire 
critique du texte du Nouveau Testament," Rotterdam, 1689; and 
finally a French translation of the New Testament with notes. His 
"Bibliotheque Critique," 4 vols., under the name of "Saint-Jarre," 
was suppressed by an order of the Council; the translation was 
condemned by Bossuet and the Archbishop of Paris and the other 
two works were suppressed by the Parliament of Paris, and at- 
tacked by a host of orthodox scholars; but they were translated 
promptly into Latin and English and gave a new support to the 
deistic argument, though Simon always wrote as an avowed be- 
liever. Cf. Robertson, J. M., "A Short History of Freethought," 
London, 1899, p. 332. See also Saintes, Amand, op. cit., p. 129. 



46 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

conversant with everything relating to those nations 
with whom the Jews associated, and know just how far 
the latter received their opinions and customs from 
abroad. 78 

Among the Church historians S. J. Semler (+1791), at 
Halle, a pupil of Baumgarten (1714-1762), followed the 
above lines of thought. In him we have the father of the 
most vulgar kind of Rationalism, which prevailed from 
about 1790-1810. Semler studied the Scriptures while 
laboring under the conviction that people worship the 
Bible instead of the Universal Father; and he seemed to 
say within himself: "I will destroy this vain idolatry, 
and if it takes bread from my wife and children ; nay, if 
life be lost in the effort". He began to examine the 
merits of each part of the Bible, and to determine what 
is the proof of the inspiration of a book. He decided 
this to be the inward conviction of our mind "that what 
it conveys to us is truth". By his famous "Accommoda- 
tion Theory" he maintained that Christ and His Apostles 
taught doctrines of such nature and by such method as 
were compatible with the peculiarities of their condition. 
Christ's utterances concerning angels and demons, the 
second coming of the Messiah, the last judgment, resur- 
rection of the dead, and inspiration of the Scripture, all 
were reduced to so many accommodations to prevailing 
errors. 79 Nor did Semler stop here, but directed his 
endeavors also against the history and the doctrinal 
authority of the Church. So persistent were his efforts 
against her traditional authority that they endangered 
the very foundations of Protestantism. 80 Together with 
the English Deists he held that the Bible is but the re- 
publication of the religion of nature ; that the world has 
been taught religion long before the Scriptures were 
written, though he confessed that in them we find it 



78 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 127 f. 

79 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 130. See also Werner, op. cit., pp. II, 
25, 13 f., 147, 354, 421. Amongst those making free use of Semler's 
"Accommodation Theory" may be named Vogel and Senf. 

80 Cf. Ibid., p. 11; also Hurst, op. cit., p. 132 f. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 47 

more clearly stated and more rigidly enjoined than any- 
where else. 81 

The adherents and followers of Semler carried the 
work farther still. Commencing with his denial of in- 
spiration, they attempted the annihilation of Revelation 
itself. Griesbach, Edelmann, and Bahrdt pursued their 
skeptical investigations for the purpose of reducing all 
positive religions to natural religion. 

Bahrdt especially brought dishonor upon his sacred 
vocation. What Jeffreys is to the judicial history of 
England, Bahrdt is to the religious history of German 
Protestantism. Seizing the pen, he invaded the sanctity 
of every doctrine that stood in the way of his theories. 
In his travesty of the New Testament, also entitled "The 
Newest Instructions From God Through Jesus Christ 
and His Apostles", he made every item subserve his 
whims. He converted dialogue into parable, and made 
any passage, however grave in import, minister to his 
purpose. Hurst speaks of his doctrine as the "German 
crystallization of all the worst elements of French 
scepticism". 82 

Others that exerted themselves in this field were Mo- 
rus, the pupil of Ernesti, and Koppe and Eichhorn, the 



81 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 132. Notice the influence of Herder 
(1744-1803) on Semler. Herder was teaching, and so was Tolner, 
that the purer source of revelation lies rather in the written than 
in the traditional word, and, furthermore, made a distinction be- 
tween the Word of God contained in the Bible and the Bible itself. 
This distinction in itself had to lead inevitably to the destruction 
of the rigid view of inspiration. 

82 Cf. ibid., pp. 142 and 139 ff. See also Stockl, "Lehrbuch," 
op. cit., p. 745. Bahrdt compares well with Richard Simon (1638- 
1712) from whose pen came forth "L' histoire critique du vieux 
Testament," Dieppe, 1678, which, among other things, derisively 
impugnes the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; "L/ histoire 
critique du texte du Nouveau Testament," Rotterdam, 1689; and 
finally a French translation of the New Testament with notes. His 
"Bibliotheque Critique," 4 vols., under the name of "Saint-Jarre," 
was suppressed by an order of the Council; the translation was 
condemned by Bossuet and the Archbishop of Paris and the other 
two works were suppressed by the Parliament of Paris, and at- 
tacked by a host of orthodox scholars; but they were translated 
promptly into Latin and English and gave a new support to the 
deistic argument, though Simon always wrote as an avowed be- 
liever. Cf. Robertson, J. M., "A Short History of Freethought," 
London, 1899, p. 332. See also Saintes, Amand, op. cit., p. 129. 



50 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

the first time popularized philosophy in the German 
language." 

In this latter movement Wolff, however, stood not 
alone. It was the aim of many of the German philoso- 
phical writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies to free philosophy, in accord with Descartes, from 
all difficulties which rendered it inaccessible to the gen- 
erality of readers, and in this way to reach the people, as 
the French authors of the Encyclopedia were doing. 
Walter Tschirnhausen (1651-1708), Johann Nicolas 
Tetens (1736-1805), and Moses Mendelssohn (1729- 
1786) represent different phases of this movement in 
different departments of thought, — physical science, 
mental science, and religious philosophy, 88 and proved 
strong factors in promoting the rationalistic spirit. 

Moreover, in the early part of the eighteenth century 
the destructive literature of the philosophers and deists 
of England and France began to make its way into Pro- 
testant Germany. True, the gifted and versatile Mos- 
heim delivered public lectures in Gottingen, and Phaff in 
Tubingen, against the influx of Deistical speculation, 
while Lilienthal edited in Konigsberg, from 1750-1782, 
his "Die Sache der in der heiligen Schrift des Alten und 
des Neuen Testamentes enthaltenen gottlichen Offen- 
barung wieder die Feinde derselben erwiesen und gerett- 
et". The example of these men was followed by 
others. 89 But gradually translations of the works of the 
English and French deistic writers were made, and be- 
fore long the Germans were able to read those works for 
themselves. 

Besides, the tenets of the Deists were adopted by a 
set of men forming an association of the "Advocates of 
Conscience" , calling themselves "Conscientiarier" (Ge- 
wissener), with Matthias Knutzen (1751), one of Kant's 
teachers at Konigsberg, as their founder and head. He, 
to all appearance, became a kind of itinerant teacher, 
purposing to inculcate the RELIGION OF HUMANITY, 
while rejecting alike immortality, God and Devil, church- 



87 Cf. Robertson, op. cit., p. 358 f. 

88 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 524. 

89 Cf. Werner, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 131 ff. 



HISTORY OF RATIONAISM IN GERMANY 51 

es and priests, and insisting that conscience could well 
take the place of the Bible as a guide of conduct. 90 He 
also embodied these doctrines in popular tracts and had 
them circulated among the masses. A similar course 
was followed by J. C. Edelmann (1767) who, from the 
year 1735 onward, wrote many violent works against 
Christianity, maintaining that the "Christian Koran", 
being quite as inconsistent with itself and as unauthentic 
as the Turkish, should be rejected. 91 

No one, however, contributed more towards spreading 
the teachings of destructive thought in Germany at this 
time than did the Berlin court itself. Toland was per- 
sonally welcomed, flattered, and honored at the court of 
Frederic William I (1713-1740), 92 whilst Frederic II 
(1740-1786) was the patron and the constant friend and 
correspondent of Voltaire, d'Argens, la Mettrie, Mau- 
pertuis, and other French philosophers of the Esprits 
Forts class, received them at his court in Potsdam, and 
made the infidel works of their country fashionable 
among the upper classes of society. 93 

In education Basedow was the first innovator of the 
new spirit. He began by his publication of the "Phila- 
lethy" and of the "Theoretical System of Sound Reason" 
to infuse it into the university method of instruction, but 
seemingly without much success, 94 that is, as far as his 
own method is concerned. 95 He then addressed himself 
to the younger minds, and contended boldly for freeing 
the children from their common and long-standing 
restraint. From 1763-1770, he practically deluged the 
land with his books on education, and failed not to unite 



90 Cf. Robertson, op. cit., p. 283. 

91 Consult Erdmann, B., "Knutzen und seine Zeit," 1876; also 
Alzog, op. cit. (Mainz ed.), p. 999 f. ; also "Acta Hist. Ecclesia," 
Vol. IV, p. 436; Vol. VI, p. 292; Vol. XII, p. 119; Vol. XVIII, p. 
957 ff. — (Alzog, Mainz ed., p. 999, note 2). 

92 Toland's "Letters to Serena" (1704), were addressed to the 
Prussian Queen, Sophia Charlotte. 

93 Cf. Devos, J. E., "The Three Ages of Progress," Milwaukee, 
1899, P. 304. 

94 See Hurst, op. cit., p. 184. 

95 The German Universities, with Vienna, Prague, Heidelberg, 
and Bonn, as centers, became under the influence and patronage 
of Frederic II and Joseph II, the homes where rationalism reigned 
supreme. 



52 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

with his laudable appeals for educational reform, 
strictures upon the validity of the Scriptures. In 
1774, he opened his "Philanthropinum" in Dessau, where 
teachers were to be trained for the application of his new 
system. 96 This, however, also failed. Salzmann, 
Ammon, and Dinter; Campe, in his "Children's Li- 
brary"; Becker in his "Universal History for the 
Young" and many others, were more successful, — in- 
deed much more so, and the results produced form some 
of the saddest pages in the history of education. 97 

Rationalism, however, was by no means confined to 
Protestant Germany. A. Weishaupt had founded the or- 
der of the Illuminati in 1775 ,the tendency of which is 
sufficiently indicated by its name. Weishaupt was in 
close communication and sympathy with the Rationalists 
of the North, and thus opened the way for the introduc- 
tion of Rationalism into Catholic Germany. Its best 
known subsequent supporters here were the theologians 
Lorenz Isenbuhl and F. A. Blau at Mainz and Georg 
Hermes at Miinster, later in Bonn; Ph. Hedderich and 
Eulogius Schneider at Bonn; the Dogmatic Theologian 
F. Oberthur and the Church historian Franz Berg at 
Wlirzburg, and last, but not least of all, Wessenberg at 
Constance. 98 

However, it was not to remain thus. A system so 
void, so absurd, so repugnant to Christian sentiment, 
could hardly long subsist without provoking a powerful 
reaction, especially among a people like the Germans, so 
remarkable for deep feeling and inquisitive intellect. 
Since the Rationalists, whether as theologians, philoso- 
phers, philologists, or exegetical writers, raised a multi- 
tude of questions in their works without answering any, 
they left many minds dissatisfied, and craving for some- 
thing better ; for there subsists deep down in the human 



96 Cf. McCormick, P. J., "History of Education," Washington, 
1015. pp. 319-321. 

97 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 184 ff. 

98 Cf. Funk, F. H., "A Manual of Church History," London, 
1913, Vol. II, p. 207; also Ott, M., "Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XV, 
p. 590 f, Article: Wessenberg, Ignaz Heinrich von, Vicar-General 
and Administrator of the Diocese of Constance; also Raich, Wet- 
xer und Welte, "Kirchenlexikon," Vol. VI, p. 603 f, Article: Illu- 
minati; also ibid., Vol. V, pp. 1875-1899, Article: Hermes, Georg, 
Philosoph und Theologe, by Kessel. 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 53 

heart an abiding belief in a God as being omnipresent, 
allwise, and benign, and a hopeful trust in the Incarna- 
tion and a Blissful Hereafter, which no amount of cold 
infidelity can entirely obscure or extinguish. The Ro- 
mantic School arose whose aim it was to redeem Ger- 
many from the bonds of infidelity and modern paganism 
which held her fettered, as we shall see later. 

For the present we simply note that under the aus- 
pices of the above school Schleiermacher wrote, in 1799, 
his ''Discourses on Religion addressed to its Cultivated 
Despisers". There is, he said, in each breast a religion 
derived from the object of intellectual or spiritual vision. 
Christianity is the great sum resulting from the antag- 
onism of the finite and the infinite, the human and the 
divine. The fall and the redemption, separation and re- 
union, are the great elements from which we behold 
Christianity arise. Of all kinds of religions this alone 
can claim universal adaptation and rightful supremacy. 
Christ was a revealer of a system more advanced than 
Polytheism or Judaism. Only by viewing his religion in 
the simple light in which He placed it, can the mind find 
safety in its attempts to seek for a basis of faith. But, 
as important as Christianity is, it will avail but little un- 
less it becomes the heart-property of the theoretical be- 
liever." 

Schleiermacher here had touched a note which was 
sure to send its melody over the land. Besides the Ro- 
manticists, with Gorres as the foremost, and with whom 
alone we are really concerned, able defenders of Super- 
naturalism arose in the Protestant Church, such as 
Harms, Tittman, Reinhardt, Tschirner, Schott, Tholuck, 
Neander, and many others, who contributed their mite 
towards causing Rationalism to wane more and more in 
Germany. 100 



99 Besides the above named work of Schleiermacher, consult 
his "System of Doctrines" (Glaubenslehre), 1821. Cf. also Stockl, 
"Geschichte," op. cit., II, pp. 198-212. 

100 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., Chapters IX and X. Note also that in 
the year 1817, the return of the centenary jubilee year of the 
Reformation, by an order from Berlin, the Lutheran and Reformed 
Churches were united to form the State Church, henceforth known 
as the Evangelical Church. This too meant more orthodoxy and 
a new awakening of religious life in the Protestant Church of 
Germany. 



54 HISTORY OF RATIONALISM IN GERMANY 

True, the day was yet to arrive on which the Rational- 
ists would conduct their criticism even beyond the pro- 
vince of their authority. When we read the cold, deliber- 
ate chapters of Michaelis, Eichhorn, and Amnion, we un- 
consciously exclaim, "Surely there will never be a step 
beyond this". Yet, even that step was to be taken. In 
1835, David Strauss published his "Life of Jesus". Ac- 
cording to Strauss, the explanation of the mysterious ac- 
counts of Jesus of Nazareth can be found in the theory of 
the myth: that the Holy Land was full of notions con- 
cerning the speedy appearance of the Messiah; — that the 
people were waiting for him, were ready to hail his in- 
carnation with rapture; that, therefore, any one who 
answered their view could be the Messiah. Christ did not 
organize the Church so much as the Church created him. 
He existed and lived on earth, but very different was the 
real Jesus from that wonderful character described in 
the Gospels, — and so on. On the whole, the work is but 
the republication of the views of every skeptical writer 
on the Gospel history. The English Deists appear with 
all their original pretensions, and so do Voltaire, De 
Maistre, Kant, — all commune here in friendly inter- 
course. True, for the time being, the work enjoyed great 
popularity, in Germany as well as abroad. Yet, as it is, 
it proved to be a "Ne sutor ultra crepidam" as far as 
Germany is concerned. The same may be said of the 
works of Bruno Bauer and F. C. Baur. The adherents 
of Rationalism saw whither their principles were leading 
them, and their opponents learned more of the desperate 
character of their foe than they had ever acquired from 
all other sources. In a word, Strauss's Life of Jesus 
proved to be the doomsday-book of Rationalism in the 
land of Luther and of St. Boniface, so that C. Schwarz 
in his work "Zur Geschichte der neuesten Theologie", 
1864, could truely say, "The Rationalism of the eight- 
eenth century and of the beginning of the nineteenth 
century is assuredly dead beyond recall." 



RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 55 

CHAPTER IV. 
RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING. 

In the foregoing pages we have seen how through Ra- 
tionalism man came to recognize that he was not merely 
a member of Society or of the Church, not merely one 
taking orders from some higher power, whether man or 
God, but a free spirit, who could sit in judgment upon 
whatever was offered to him for his acceptance. Man, 
therefore, must revolt against conventions which Reason 
does not sanction, and prove his freedom by testing all 
things human and divine. 

The result was destructive in the extreme. It gave 
the individual his right indeed, but in trying to make 
him independent of all that concrete environment which 
institutions represent, it also emptied his life of real con- 
tent, of those central spiritual realities which give life a 
meaning and render it so sublime and beautiful. For, in 
establishing reason as the only criterion of truth, this 
very reason not only separated itself from God, but also 
gradually separated itself from other aspects of the hu- 
man spirit and became actively opposed to all feelings, 
aspirations, and enthusiasms which could not meet its 
narrow tests, with the result that practical life became 
subjective and impressionable, and moral life superficial 
and utilitarian in its aim. A limited one-sided under- 
standing came to unite with a cold and selfish heart and 
deprived man of that looking upward to heaven which 
Ovid has recorded as the noblest attitude of human na- 
ture in the following immortal lines : 

"Os homini sublime dedit; coelumque tueri 
Jussit, et erectus ad sidera tolere vultus" — 

"He who to man a form erect has given, 
Bade his exalted looks be fixed on heaven." 

In affirmation of the foregoing, we may quote Dr. 
Shields who says that "psychology is revealing. . .the 



56 RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 

fact that a conscious content strictly confined to the in- 
tellect lacks vitality and power of achievement. Every 
impression tends by its very nature to flow out in ex- 
pression, and the intellectual content that is isolated 
from effective consciousness will be found lacking in dy- 
namo-genetic content because it has failed to become 
structural in the mind and remains external thereto." 101 

As it was, the Philosophy of the Enlightenment could 
but lead to the most abstract idealism on the one hand 
and the crudest materialism on the other, and it did so. 1 ' 2 
The inner life became conscious, as it were, of its unity 
and intrenched itself within its own territory, while the 
outer world receded to occupy an inferior position, and 
lost all inner life, since its functions of movement in 
space had no need of a spiritual principle. It also lost 
in colour and variety because the whole range of sense 
properties was regarded, not as belonging to the objects 
themselves, but as a mere garment with which the spirit 
or mind invested them. Nature, thus, came to be con- 
ceived as but one great mechanism, and movement de- 
void of any inner connection with the soul, while the 
latter, through the a priori method, came to be looked 
upon as entirely self-dependent, master of a thought- 
force dominating all. For the Rationalist reason was an 
abstract faculty, existing in the individual, by means of 
which he was able to decide, affirmatively or negatively, 
such questions as might be presented to him, as the ex- 
istence of God, of matter; the immortality of the soul, 
etc. For reason a thing was either true or false, and 
that was all there was to say ; and since the criterion ex- 
isted within the individual man, he was capable of pro- 
nouncing the rightness or wrongness of any problem on 
abstract theoretical grounds, and life and thought were 
made to become formal, abstract, and shadowy. 

The era of the Enlightenment was, consequently, cold, 
passive, and superficial to the extreme, without insight 



ioi Shields, Thomas E., "Philosophy of Education," Washing- 
ton, 1914, p. 309. 

102 Ci. Saintes, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 442 f . ; also Caird, E., 'The 
Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant," New York, 1889, Vol. I, 
p. 46. 



RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 57 

and response, and blind to the deeper elements of the hu- 
man spirit. Sundering himself, as the Rationalist did, 
from the life of the race and the historical background, 
which had shaped his own opinion as truly as those he 
was criticizing, 103 judging everything without reference 
to its setting and by the sole test of an abstract logic, it 
is indeed not strange that the Man of the Enlightenment 
should have shown a very unenlightened attitude to- 
wards beliefs which did not fit into his logical scheme, 
and should, consequently, seem to him vague and worth- 
less. The conclusion came to be reached that if reason 
alone is competent to reach God, revelation is superflu- 
ous. A so-called Natural Religion took the place of Re- 
vealed Religion having little content beyond the belief 
in a God who made the universe and set it in motion, and 
who laid down certain laws of conduct for men in the 
moral world. 104 

But since besides natural religion, or the pure 
faith of reason, the historical religions contain statutory 
determinations, or a doctrinal faith, it was deemed the 
duty of the critical philosopher, to inquire how much of 
this positive admixture can be justified at the bar of rea- 
son. In this investigation the question of the divine re- 
velation, of dogma, and the ceremonial laws was ration- 
alistically treated as an open question, and that so much 
so, that, at last, after the process of evaporation was 
over, a religion less Christian than Mohammedanism re- 
mained as a residuum. 

What made the procedure of these Rationalists — many 
of whom were really well-meaning men — so much the 
more successful, as well as dangerous, was that they 
came to the people under the appearance of the prophet 
clothed in sheep skin. "You do not understand the mys- 



103 "Nun alles vollendet ist," says Gorres, in speaking of His- 
tory, "stent es wie ein gottlich Naturwerke da, wer unverstaend- 
lich daran zu riihren wagt, den erschlagt ziirnend der innewohn- 
ende Geist; wir selbst aber sind mit unserer Vergangenheit hinein 
versteinert, wahrend unsere Zukunft gleichsam als Pflanze hin- 
aufsteigend, an der Sonne wieder neues Leben sucht und frischen 
Ather saugen mochte." (Schellberg, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 2S4. Arti- 
cle: Wachsthum in der Historie, pp. 254-284). 

104 Cf. Rogers, Arthur K., "A Student's History of Philosophy," 
New York, 1917, pp. 254 and 387 ff. 



58 RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 

teries of the Church rightly, and ignorantly cling to the 
forms and confessions", said they to the people. "We 
will aid you to behold her (the Church) in a better 
light." And under this plea, they razed to the ground 
tower after tower of the popular faith before the deceit 
was discovered. 105 A writer of that time says: "Pro- 
testantism dethroned the earlier Christianity, modern 
science Protestantism ; consequently, the whole of Chris- 
tianity is completely ruined and antiquated." 106 

Johann von Miiller, speaking of Herder's "Outline of a 
Philosophy of the History of Man", says, "I find there 
everything except Christ." To Herder's mind Christ 
was only "the well-beloved of Jehovah". 1 -' ' The writings 
of Gothe (1749-1832), who labored to cultivate among 
his contemporaries a taste for ancient literature and a 
love for the classics of the Greek mind, contributed pow- 
erfully to extinguish the spirit of faith. All the faculties 
of his splendid genius came to be concentrated on the one 
task of putting nature in the place of God. Schiller 
(1759-1805), in his "Gods of Greece", expressed his re- 
gret that, to give adequate glory to the "One God of the 
Christians", the gods of Olympus should be sacrificed — 

"Einen zu bereichern unter alien 
Musste diese Gotterwelt vergehen !" 

and he sighed, 

"Kehre wieder holdes Bliithenalter der Natur." 108 

For Eichhorn the Bible was not worth more, as an his- 
torical record, than an old chronicle of Indian, Greek, or 
Roman legend. Rohr, in his "Briefe iiber den Rational- 
ismus", says that Christ was a rationalist of pure, clear, 



105 See Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 116 ff. (Gorres' Die Herabkunft 
der Ideen und das Zeitalter). 

106 "Der Protestantismus hat das friihere Christenthum ge- 
stiirzt, die moderene Wissenschaft aber den Protestantismus; also 
is das ganze Christenthum vollig ruinirt und antiquirt." (Histo- 
risch-politische Blatter, Vol. 28, Article : Das Christenthum und 
Bruno Bauer, p. 161). 

107 Cf. Alzog, op. cit., Cincinnati ed., Ill, p. 603 f. 

108 Cf. Alzog, op. cit., p. 1005 (Mainz ed.) 



RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 59 

and sound reason. For Ammon, Christ was a mere man. 
Dinter, a voluminous writer on theological subjects, told 
the children of the folly of the old belief in God, angels, 
and miracles. Campe's "Children's Library", previously 
referred to, encouraged the children's literary taste to 
the exclusion of religious development. Siegwart's "La 
Nouvelle Heloise", and similar works, had the effect of 
turning young men and young women into dreamers, and 
children of every social condition were converted into 
premature thinkers on love, romance, and suicide. Edu- 
cation, in its true import, was no longer pursued, since 
skepticism became the gnawing tooth of both teacher and 
pupils. 109 

Nor could so important a factor in the religious life of 
a people, as the sacred hymns, escape the sarcasm of the 
rationalistic reformers. Having been composed during 
the "iron age of truth", they were declared unfit to be 
sung by the congregations whose lot was cast in the 
golden period of "Man's Enlightenment." New hymn 
books were introduced into many of the churches, and 
the people sang RATIONALISM. 110 

The music accompanying the hymns was doomed to a 
like fate. All sentiment was extracted as quite out of 
place, and sublimity was made to give way to a more 
temporate and stoical standard: — the oratories and the 
cantata of the theater and beer-garden were the Sabbath 
accompaniments of the sermon. 111 

The effect Rationalism had on the arts may be gathered 
from the words of Gothe when he says, 'Something 
painful, desolate, almost evil, has come to characterize 
works of art; and, instead of faith, skepticism is often 
transparent." 112 

The aim of the literature of the time we find expressed 
in Wieland's "Agathon" (1766-67), which was written 
to serve as an object-lesson for what the rationalistic 
philosophy endeavored to point out theoretically: — the 



109 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 166 ff. 

no Ibid., p. 194. 

in Cf. Ibid., p. 195. 

112 Cf. Ibid., p. 183. 



60 RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 

true way toward individual perfection. 113 Individual 
perfection was the shibboleth that was used everywhere. 
It is said that when the boys and girls had ceased read- 
ing Campe's "Robinson der Jungere", they were filled 
with the idea that they were naturally perfect.- 4 

In politics this latter idea found expression in the exis- 
tence and the work of the "Enlightened Despot", which 
is the most characteristic feature in the government of 
the eighteenth century. We meet him in Louis XIV of 
France, in Frederic II of Prussia, in Joseph II of 
Austria, in Catherine the Great of Russia. The state 
came to be confounded with the person of the sovereign. 
He was the master of his people, their guardian, judge, 
legislator, and pontiff, as it naturally follows from the 
idea of an individually perfect and as such self-sufficient 
ruler. As the highest in the series of individually per- 
fect social beings, no other human authority can be re- 
cognized. Hence, God alone is the judge of the actions of 
the princes. But for the "Ruler of the Enlightenment" 
God had no existence, or was Nature, or the Unknown 
and Unknowable and hence not worth while troubling 
about. The principle upon which the Enlightened 
Despot rested his behavior was that of Machiavelli 
(1467-1592), who had taught the dangerous doctrine 
that a ruler, bent on exercising a benevolent despotism, 
is justified in employing any means to achieve his pur- 
pose. 

The same policy was carried out in foreign diplomacy. 
Just as at home the state recognized no other will than 
its own, so abroad it recognized no public law to which it 



113 Cf. Francke, K., "A History of German Literature as De- 
termined by Social Forces," New York, 1916, p. 252 ff. 

114 Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 188. See Campe, J. H., Robinson der 
Juengere. Ein Lesebuch fuer Kinder zur allgemeinen Schul-en- 
cyclopaedie. St. Petersburg, 1812. 10th edition. Same translated 
by C. H. Ibershoff. Boston, 1904 (Abridged). Consult also Kampe, 
J. H., "Allgemeine Revision des Gesammten Schul-und-Erziehungs- 
wesen." Hamburg, 1785-1792. 

115 Cf. Machiavelli, Xiccolo, "The Prince" (trans, by W. K. 
Marriott), Everyman's Library, London, 1914, Chap. XVIII, pp. 
141-146. Cf. also Hobbes, Thomas, "Leviathan," with an introduc- 
tion by Henry Morley, London and New York, Part II, Chapter 
XVIII. 



RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 61 

was even morally responsible. An international state- 
system had been erected by the Peace of Westphalia, 116 
based on the principle that one nation's gain is another 
nation's loss, and that the interests of one are necessarily 
opposed to the interests of all the others. For reasons 
of state, engagements could be broken, contracts of mar- 
riage recognized or denied, wills and pragmatic sanction 
set aside, wars waged, territory divided, rights of suc- 
cession disputed, and monarchs dethroned. Europe was 
broken into fragments, and, with the exception of France 
and England, no homogeneous national units could be 
found. 117 The German Empire, for example, in 1740, 
consisted of three hundred and eighteen states. Each 
ruler exercised absolute sovereignty in his own do- 
minions and felt himself attached to the Empire chiefly 
by tradition and sentiment. 118 

In examining the life and the thought of the "Era of 
the Enlightenment", we need not, then, be surprised at 
the extreme confusion which prevailed and the accom- 
panying painful insecurity as to the real aim of life. On 
every side there existed not only a division of humanity 
into factions, but often a division within the individual 
himself, and hence that discontent and restlessness that 
made itself felt everywhere. Dr. C. Gutberlet gives us 
the explanation for it when he says, "After (philosophi- 
cal) speculation, in its presumption, had rejected the 
guiding star of Divine Revelation, it disrupted within it- 
self into a chaos of violently opposed systems". 119 Man, 
by his thought, belongs to the intellectual order; by his 



116 See p. 49, footnote 86, of this Dissertation. Cf. Hayes, op. 
cit., Vol. I, p. 203 f- 

117 Andrews, C. M., "The Historical Development of Modern 
Europe," New York and London, 1909, p. 2 f. Consult also Reich, 
Emil, "Select Documents Illustrating Mediaeval and Modern His- 
tory," London, 1905, especially pp. 3 f., 19, 21 f., and 24 f. Cf. also 
Wakeman, H. O., "The Ascendency of France," 1598-1715, p. 125 ff. 
Cf. also foot-note 86, p. 49 (Dissertation). 

118 Cf. Prince, G. M., "Germany Since 1740," New York, 1914, 
p. 2 ff. 

119 Nachdem die Spekulation in ihrem t)bermuthe den leiten- 
den Stern der gottlichen Offenbarung von sich gewiesen, ist sie in 
sich selbst in ein Chaos einander heftig bekampfender Richtungen 
zersplittert worden."— "Philosophisches Jahrbuch," Fulda, 1888, 
Vol. I, p. 1. 



62 RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 

will, to the moral order ; by his union with his fellowmen, 
to the social order; by his body, to the physical order; by 
his entire soul, to the religious order; and under all these 
relations, he has received means of obtaining his end, 
which is perfection and beatitude.'- Hence, true en- 
lightenment can only be brought about when all these 
forces are made to work together harmoniously. 

However, contrary to the above, everything that ap- 
peared on the surface of the times contributed its mite to 
the spiritual petrifaction of the masses, since enlighten- 
ment was sought in the natural order alone. Literature, 
philosophy, history, education, art. public and social life, 
all were so influenced by increasing indifference and 
doubt, that, when the people awoke to their real condi- 
tion they found themselves in a strange latitude and on 
a most dangerous road.-' 

Of Rationalism it may be affirmed, however, as of all 
phases of Infidelity, that it is not in its results an unmix- 
ed evil. God has so provided for His people that He has 
even caused the delusion by which they have suffered to 
contribute great benefits but little anticipated by the de- 
luded or the deluders themselves. The intellectual la- 
bors of the German Rationalists have shed an incalcu- 
lable degree of light on the Sacred Books, and upon al- 
most even* branch of theology*. They perused the Fathers 
of the Church for corroborative opinions, applied them- 
selves to the Oriental languages with a zeal worthy of a 
better purpose, traveled through countries mentioned in 
the Bible in order to study local customs and popular tra- 
ditions, and searched the testimony of both ancient and 
modern writers with an enthusiasm seldom surpassed. 
Their purpose was to maintain the human character of 
the Bible. Now what do we behold? Those researches 
have been employed by evangelical critics for a higher 



120 See Lacordaire, God: Conferences. New York. 1865. p. 140. 

121 Cf. Scr.ellberg, op. cit.. I. p. 282 ft. Read also, ibid.. Gdrres' 
"Fall der Religion und ihre Wiedergeburt." I. pp. 440-478. Cf. also 
Gorres, J. J., "Germany and the Revolution" (trans, by J. Black), 
London, 1920, p. 214 ff. 



RATIONALISM IN ITS PRACTICAL BEARING 63 

end, and are powerful auxiliaries in the defense of the 
divine authority of the Scripture. 122 

Again, by the bold criticism of the Rationalists and 
their calling forth opposing controversies, many 
things were placed in a new light and a way was opened 
for a more free and unprejudiced judgment, and for 
greater tolerance. "Rationalism was not simply to be 
ignored", says Schaff, "but in the hand of that Provi- 
dence, which allows nothing to take place in vain, must 
serve the purpose of bringing to a new form the old, 
which, in its contracted sphere — that of mere under- 
standing — it had profanely demolished. By this means 
a freer activity and a fuller development were secured, 
and that want, which lies at the root of all Rationalism, 
was supplied; namely, that religious truth shall not be 
confronted with the subjective spirit in the form of mere 
outward authority, but, in an inward way, become fully 
reconciled to it in the form of conviction and certain- 
ty." 1 ^ 3 

Thus has God ever caused the wrath of man to 
praise Him! The Master Who declared Himself "The 
Truth", proved by His own life that His doctrines were 
not destined to pervade the mind and heart of the human 
race without encountering opposition. The spirit of 
Christianity is so totally at variance with that of the 
World that it is in vain to expect harmony between them. 
Truth, however, will not suffer on that account; and 
when the issues appear it will shine all the brighter for 
the fires through which it has passed. 



12a Cf. Hurst, op. cit., p. 581. 

123 "What is Church History?" p. 15 (quoted from Hurst, op, 
cit, p. 580). 



64 REASON AND FAITH 

CHAPTER V. 
REASON AND FAITH. 

Through the rationalistic philosophy of the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries, a line of separa- 
tion was drawn between the intellectual and the spiritu- 
al, between the scientific and the religio-aesthetic, be- 
tween culture and belief, and the individual was placed 
in sharp antithesis to the social order. 124 Man stands at 
once in time and above time ; he lives on the boundary of 
time and eternity, on the horizon where the two come to- 
gether. Consequently, the intellectual or the scientific 
must be made to combine with the spiritual or religious 
element in the life of man if there is to be harmony and 
organic unity. A separation of these two elements in 
the individual means also their separation in regard to 
the race, i. e., a separation of human and religious so- 
ciety, of State and Church, of which Lacordaire says 
that "they are two sisters born on the same day of the 
divine word, the one having regard to time, the other to 
eternity; distinct in their domain and end, but indis- 
solubly united in the heart of man." 125 

Both Leibniz and Kant recognized the danger that 
lurks in a separation of these two forces and endeavor- 
ed to effect a reunification. Leibniz failed, since the 
connection between his primal idea and general notions 
was not made clear ; nor did he succeed in explaining in- 
dividual things, — his two great principles, Body and 
Soul, Matter and Spirit, were never merged into one. 126 

Kant equally failed. By separating reason into prac- 
tical and theoretical, he created a gap wider than ever. 
He himself, it seems, to some extent at least, recognized 
the fact, and, in his "Critique of Judgment", aimed to 
overcome it. The Critique of this faculty, the faculty of 
judgment, unites those of the theoretical and practical 



124 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 651. 

125 Lacordaire, op. cit., p. 235. 

126 Cf. Holmes, A., op. cit., Sec. I (Introduction). 



REASON AND FAITH 65 

reason, as it were, in a middle point. Pure reason con- 
templates nature, practical reason contemplates freedom ; 
the judging faculty unites these two provinces by viewing 
nature as a system of means, constructed by the highest 
reason to bring about certain ends. Our aesthetic senti- 
ments confirm the belief of the practical reason in im- 
mortality and God, and make the real conclusion of the 
whole system as assertory of the great fundamentals of 
morality and natural religion as could possibly be at- 
tained to without an actual demonstration. 127 

Yet, as much as the grandeur of his conception is to be 
admired, Kant left the problem unsolved. There is but 
one way in which knowledge can obtain a firm basis, a 
sound starting point: the whole of life, the subjective 
and the objective elements, must be linked into a unity, 
and at the same time be transformed into personal ac- 
tion. "He, who cannot set the line of demarcation for 
himself, is put in fetters by the Nemesis," 128 says Gorres. 

Reason asserts its own limitations, and will never al- 
low that it can know no more because there is nothing 
more to be known. The intelligible does not satisfy Rea- 
son, because in the intelligible alone it cannot find the 
explanation of the intelligible; or, in other words, Rea- 
son cannot understand the intelligible without the su- 
perintelligible ; for, though it cannot without Divine 
Revelation grasp the superintelligible, it can know this 
much, that the superintelligible is, and that in it the in- 
telligible has its root and origin, its cause and meaning. 
Here is a grave difficulty to encounter for every exclusive 
rationalist, and which can be removed only by Faith. 
Nature, Reason, Science alone, never satisfy in them- 
selves, as all our savants know, for where their know- 
ledge ends, they invent hypotheses. It is not that Rea- 
son is a false or deceptive light, but it is limited ; it does 
not, and cannot, give us the whole truth. 



127 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 544 ft. See also Pichler, Hans von, 
"Zur Entwicklung des Rationalismus von Descartes bis Kant," 
Kantstudien, Vol. 18 (1913), Berlin, 1913, p. 410. 

128 "Wer sich nicht selber die Grenze geben mag., den schlagt 
die Nemesis in Fessel." Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 94. 



66 REASON AND FAITH 

Ozanam says, "Reason is indeed powerful — but it may 
be said that reason is tagged on to us, that it lies captive 
in us. until an impulse from without awakens it. . . . 
Reason, then, can do nothing without an utterance that 
calls it into action ; that utterance comes from without, 
as of an authority. . . .as from another reasonable being 
by which it is irresistibly attracted. The adherence of 
the mind to that utterance is what we call, in the order 
of nature, human faith, to which corresponds, in the 
theological order, divine or supernatural faith. Reason 
and faith are therefore two positive powers, distinct in- 
deed, but not enemies . . . reason does not awaken except 
upon an utterance that provokes it. and faith does not 
hand itself over unless obedience to that command is 
found to be reasonable."' 

Tradition and Scripture, the two great depositories of 
divine testimony, like natural truth, are equally exterior 
with regard to man ; they are a light which reaches him 
from without, and if it penetrated within man without 
meeting there a corresponding light it would not be un- 
derstood, it would shine there in darkness. But God 
having made man an intelligent creature, gave him, ac- 
cording to St. John, a primitive light, "which enlighten- 
eth every man that cometh into this world''. This light 
consists in the element laid down in our intellect or rea- 
son by which we must believe certain truths as we be- 
lieve our own existence; it is the understanding that re- 
veals them to us, and reasonings of every kind seem to 
be but feeble streams derived from this fountain. Dante 
had this in mind when he wrote — 

"A guisa del ver primo che Tuom crede." — 
"It is thus that man believes in primitive truth." 

When Divine Reason, putting itself into communication 
with Human Reason, as it does in divine revelation, af- 
firms to it that a God exists, that the world was created 
by Him, that man is fallen from his primitive state of 



129 Ozanam. "La Civilization au Cinquieme Siecle," Paris, 1894, 
Vol. I, p. 272 ff. (translated). 



REASON AND FAITH 67 

sanctity, that Providence has labored for his restoration, 
and that God will judge him according to his works, — Di- 
vine Reason says nothing to which Human Reason does 
not itself render testimony to a certain degree, as 
Ozanam rightly demonstrates. St. Thomas says, "No one 
believes unless he sees what is necessary to be believed." 

Again, beyond the existence of material things is that 
of mind: — perceptions, mental images, ideas, judg- 
ments, inferences, emotions, volitions, — of all these we 
become aware, and may observe and study them, by in- 
trospection ; but the Mind itself, the thinking substance, 
we do not see. Yet reason tells us that mind exists, — 
we know it from its activities, its accidents. All doc- 
trine is, indeed, a mixture of knowledge and of faith, 
since the object of all doctrine is necessary both phenom- 
enal and substantial, composed of something which ap- 
pears and something which does not appear. Science, 
therefore, cannot be complete without a knowledge of the 
essence or substance of things, and, consequently, not 
without faith, for faith is the substance of things to be 
hoped for, so to say, the evidence not seen. 

If then there exists reality which is not subject to the 
sensible movement or change that characterizes being as 
physical, nor either to the extension in space which char- 
acterizes being as mathematical ; if, in other words, there 
is not only being that is thinkable apart from motion and 
quantity, but also being that exists apart from motion 
and quantity; if, in fine, there exists real being which is 
not material but spiritual, then, evidently, physical 
sciences, including mathematics, do not exhaust the na- 
ture and origin of the real, and we have reason for the 
existence of a Philosophia Prima which will take in all 
being, which will go beyond physics, — a Metaphysica or 
TransPhysica, a study of being as such. 

But metaphysics, too, must have a limit, which it 
reaches when reason has exhausted the implications of 
sense experience. This is the case when we attain to the 
concept of a First Cause, — a cause in itself uncaused but 
the cause of every other cause, — the necessary being 



68 REASON AND FAITH 

which produces, underlies, and upholds the contingent 
and changeable universe; and that cause and necessary 
being, needless to say, is God. Here philosophy culmin- 
ates, — and new horizons are open to the mind by faith as 
such. 

Again, the material subordination of the various 
sciences amongst themselves is a law that is logically in- 
dispensible for the unification of human knowledge. A 
truth that has been duly demonstrated as certain in one 
science will serve as a beacon to all the other sciences. 
A law that is certain in chemistry must be adopted in 
physics ; the physicist who runs counter to it is surely on 
a false track. In like manner, the philosopher may not 
endeavor to upset the certain data of theology any more 
than the certain conclusions of the particular sciences. 
This reasoning, which we find formulated by Henry of 
Ghent, is as sound and cogent to-day as it has ever been. 
The manifold forms of scientific activity are regulated 
and limited by a natural division of knowledge into 
branches; which division is, however, negative and pro- 
hibitive, not positive and imperative. To deny such mu- 
tual limitations would be to deny the conformity of 
truth with truth; it would be denying the principle of 
contradiction, and yielding to a relativism destructive of 
all knowledge. 

Hence, a philosophy is untrue in so far as it contra- 
dicts Revealed Truth ; and he alone possesses the fulness 
of truth — in so far as it can be had in this world — who 
possesses the Christian Philosophy of Life, that philo- 
sophy which embraces and harmonizes NATURAL and 
REVEALED TRUTH, reason and faith. Life has its 
departments of thought and of action ; but these, though 
distinct, are related. The TRUE and the GOOD are the 
standards in all, whether in nature or above it. If man's 
heart and mind conform to them fully, he is a philoso- 
pher and a Christian ; if his philosophy is out of harmony 
with Revealed Truth, he stands convicted of error. 

Moreover, philosophy concerns itself with conduct, 
life, reality, — towards all of which religion cannot be in- 



REASON AND FAITH 69 

different; consequently, there is a religious aspect to 
philosophy. Philosophy and Theology, therefore, Reason 
and Faith, Science and Revelation, cannot stand apart; 
they must go hand in hand; one must supplement and 
complete the other. Only thus can unity of knowledge, 
which the human mind craves, be accomplished. 

Science and Faith, then, are not incompatible, and Rea- 
son and Faith are in harmony and must not be separated. 
Man, however, is apt to separate what God has united. 
Enlightened by a double light, because of his double na- 
ture, because of his double substance, or better double 
principle, the material and the spiritual, he may not per- 
ceive that both meet in a single fount, in one single per- 
sonality, and, dividing truth by a divorce which de- 
stroys it, oppose the revelation from without to the re- 
velation from within, Nature to God, Matter to Spirit. 
From that moment all becomes obscured in an "adulter- 
ous understanding", as Lacordaire puts it, and man dis- 
tinguishes only that which strikes the senses : — the True 
for him is that only which bears the stamp of a palpable 
and course reality, as in the case of Sensism or Material- 
ism ; or he goes to the other extreme and sees reality only 
in the idea that exists in the mind, — Idealism. And this 
is exactly what happened in the Era of the Enlighten- 
ment. 

Finally, after having sported with the authority of the 
human reason in undermining some of its most obvious 
conclusions, and having thereby placed these outside the 
sphere of certainty, recourse had to be taken to some 
other element by which the place of that which had been 
rejected could be supplied. Such an element was found in 
the undefined impulses of our spiritual nature, in the 
spontaneous working of our mental instincts, and from 
these, accordingly, the philosophers of the so-called Ro- 
mantic Movement, as we shall see in the next chapter, 
sought to originate a System of Truth, which they 
thought the power of reason to be quite unable to attain, 
and which they attributed to the workings of Mysticism, 
a philosophical system which may lead into the worst 
follies of overcredulity if misdirected and misapplied. 



70 REASON AND FAITH 

Gorres now arose and said to the philosophers around 
him: "You have all alike mistaken the road; you have 
sought for truth in "sources each but partly true, "rea- 
son" and" feeling" (intuition). Reason is imperfect; it 
halts and stumbles at every step when it would pene- 
trate into the deeper recesses of pure and absolute 
truth; you have entirely overlooked the divine element 
within you, the spiritual nature that allies you with the 
spiritual world ; while you others, on the contrary, have 
overemphasized the spiritual at the cost of the 
material nature in man. Both of you have caused a 
separation of that which is, in itself, indivisible. Re- 
turn, and see again things as they ought to be seen, 
namely in the light of both, nature and spirit, reason and 
faith, and render once more to God what is God's and to 
Caesar what is Caesar's." 

In the subsequent pages our endeavor shall be to show, 
through the life and works of Gorres, the constructive 
tendency of Christian Mysticism, as opposed to the false 
Rationalism, on the one hand, and a false Mysticism on 
the other. 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 71 



CHAPTER VI. 

REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM.— THE RO- 
MANTIC MOVEMENT. 

Rationalism, by calling before its tribunal the author- 
ity of Christ, of the Apostles, and of the Church, whose 
existence and character were thereby called in question, 
destroyed faith; and man, dragged down from his state 
of faith, which is for him want and duty alike, was 
transported into a state of scepticism, materialism, 
atheism. By freeing mankind, through observation and 
reasoning, from the belief in the supernatural, it was be- 
lieved that the world would be made happy. The con- 
trary, however, was the case. With faith gone, there also 
disappeared the spirit of devotedness and self-sacrifice, 
and room was made for the principle of an Enlightened 
Self-interest. "For", says Lecky, "it is the moral type 
and beauty, the enlarged conception and persuasive pow- 
er of the Christian faith, that have chiefly called it — the 
spirit of devotedness and selfsacrifice — into being, and 
it is by this influence alone that it can be permanently 
sustained." 130 With the spirit of devotedness and self- 
sacrifice gone, man's true source of greatness and of 
happiness was taken away from him, and he was left a 
reasoning animal indeed, but nothing more, contrary to 
the admonishing voice of the writer of the Proverbs, 
which says: Let not mercy and truth leave thee, put 
them about thy neck, write them in the tablets of thy 
heart: and thou shalt find grace before God and man. 131 

Men then arose in Germany, as elsewhere, to restore 
to its rightful inheritance what had been lost: — faith, 
enthusiasm, hope, and love. These were the Romanti- 
cists. Through Herder (1744-1803) the principle of or- 
ganic unity had come in, the idea namely that there is an 
indwelling spiritual life in the whole universe, a central 
spiritual force, in the whole and in every part, which re- 



130 Lecky, op. tit., Vol. II, p. 354. 

131 Chap. 20:28. 



72 REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 

veals itself in the individuality of every living thing. 
Three great intellectual movements endeavored to work 
out this problem. The Stormers and Stressers (1764- 
1790), under the leadership of Rousseau, said: Let 
every man express his life unhindered, and it will come 
out in a form organically fitted to it. Just write out 
your feelings and leave the rest to nature. 

The Weimarian Classicists (1795-1805), Schiller and 
Gothe, came to shake their head to this and said: This 
will not make art; we must also have our eyes open: — 
we must study mother nature and her laws, and in so 
doing we shall establish an organic harmony between the 
spiritual world (mind) and the world of nature 
(heart). In the center of their art (aesthetics) they 
placed the Kantian antithesis of sensibility and reason 
and the reconciliation of the two sides of human nature 
brought about by its occupation with the beautiful. Ar- 
tistic activity, or the play impulse, according to them, 
mediates between the lower sensuous matter-impulse 
and the higher rational form-impulse, and unites the two 
in harmonious cooperation. 132 

The Romanticists, while also insisting on having the 
eyes open, could not come to agree wholly with Schiller 
and Gothe. We feel so deeply, said they, the greatness 
and the intensity of the inner life, the spiritual life, fed 
by divine springs; how can the finite ever fully express 
the infinite! 133 

Here we strike the very root of the differences separa- 
ting the art of the Weimarians, the vehicle of the Kan- 
tian rationalism, from that of the Romanticists, the 
vehicle of the forces against it. While the former sought 
and found their universals or ideas in the empirical 
world, from careful study and observation of men and 
women with whom they were acquainted, the latter cre- 
ated their ideas from within ; — truth, according to them, 
lay within their own soul. "Nach Innen geht der 



132 See "Schiller's Sammtliche Werke," Stuttgart, 1862, Vol. I, 
pp. 81-97; also ibid., Vol. 12, Letter 7, pp. 22-24, and Letter 6, pp. 
14-22. Cf. also, Falkenberg, op. cit., p. 147 f. 

133 Cf. Wernaer, R. M., "Romanticism and the Romantic School 
in Germany," New York, 1910, p. 40 ff. 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 73 

geheimnisvolle Weg", declared Novalis. Look within 
you and see if there is not to be found a spiritual nature 
that allies you with the spiritual world, when reason 
grows calm and silent, — a light that envelops all the 
faculties, if you will only give yourself up to your better 
feelings and listen to the voice of God that speaks and 
stirs within! 134 

According to Kant man could perceive the external 
world: — trees, mountains, animals, — but what they ac- 
tually stand for, die Dinge an sich, he did not know. 
This satisfied the Weimarians. Beauty, with them, was 
for the most part sensuous beauty, — beauty that attaches 
itself primarily to form, to nature's manifold tones, 
colors, lines. Not so with the Romanticists. They re- 
cognized, with Winckelmann, that a large part of what 
we call beauty in nature is not attached to the outside 
object; that man sees nature's beauties only in propor- 
tion as he is able to give of the treasures of his own 
heart. 

In their ideas the Romanticists were greatly support- 
ed by Fichte (1765-1814). In his "Wissenschaftslehre" 
(1794) he declared that there is nothing in the outer, 
visible world, which is not already in man's mind. What 
appears to be a transcendental background is but man's 
own self : the non~ego is the ego. The world is the world 
as self -consciousness builds it; but the essence of self- 
consciousness is the moral will to act dutifully, stead- 
fastly, nobly, divinely. The world of the senses, with its 
limitations and temptations, is but an obstacle put in 
man's way to be overcome. The ego has to struggle to 
win for itself victories in order to rise to higher states 
of perfection, — on to the great "Absolute Ego", the 
destined home of all individual egos. 

With this philosophy as a background, the Romanti- 
cists felt themselves prepared to establish their school. 
In July, 1797, Frederic Schlegel arrived in Berlin for 
the purpose of establishing a literary journal, the 
Athenaeum, as a means by which the ideas of the move- 



134 Cf. Ibid., p. 33 ff. 



74 REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 

merit could be brought to the knowledge of the public. — 
Around it rallied, with the above-named as doc- 
trinaire, August W. Schlegel, as linguist; Frederic von 
Hardenberg (Novalis), as type; Schleiermacher, 135 as the 
religious philosopher; — then Tieck, Wackenroder, Bern- 
hardi, Hulsen, and Varnhagen, Caroline Schlegel and 
Dorothea Veit. 

The first number of the "Athenaeum" contains the 
manifesto of the new school, amounting to something 
like this : beauty for beauty's sake, the concentration of 
the rays of culture in one focus, and the re-establishment 
of the eternal synthesis of poetry and philosophy, of 
poetry and life, — and the absolute freedom of the ar- 
tists to express himself. 136 What the Romanticists were 
aiming at, at this time, was to bring into harmony Ra- 
tionalism, Pietism, and Deism. They sought a God who 
would reconcile in his own person the antagonistic sys- 
tems of philosophy of their day, — a pantheistic God who 
dwells in nature as well as in man, and not so much the 
traditional God of the Christian religion. "Le rational- 
isme," says Maret, 137 "a toujours gravite vers le 
pantheisme ; toujours il a tendu a se transformer en cette 
doctrine." By watching the activities of the great 
Ego, das Ich, as the subject of self -consciousness, and 
sounding the depths of its endless nature, they (the Ro- 
manticists) hoped to come to a true knowledge of God 
and of things, a knowledge which already Socrates and 
Spinoza had demanded for the wise man, and which 
Kant had sought in vain in the external man. 

Yet, the Ego's wonderful power, its divine indepen- 
dence, and the royal rulership it gave man over the do- 
main of things and thought, intoxicated them but for a 
time. Fichte's philosophy, after all, proved but the 
ascending and descending of a philosophic ladder, sus- 



135 Cf. "British Quarterly Review" for May, 1894, Article: 
"Schleiermacher and his Theological Position." 

136 Cf. Haym, R., "Die Romantische Schule," Berlin, 1871, P- 
24 ff. ; also cf. Schlegel, F., "Seine prosaischen Jugendschriften," 
Wien, 1006 (Minor's ed.), II, Fragment, 116, p. 220. 

137 Maret, H., "Essai sur Le Pantheisme dans les Societes Mod- 
ernes," Paris, 1840, p. IX (Preface). 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 75 

pended in the air ; — a climbing up and down from the in- 
dividual ego to the universal ego, with no point of actual 
attachment : — below a bottomless pit and above the dizzy- 
height of abstraction. 138 

Schelling seemed to furnish a solution. There is, he 
says, a world of mind and a world of matter, a spiritual 
and a material world, both issuing from a third prin- 
ciple, the Absolute, — the World-Soul. The system of na- 
ture is at the same time the system of our spirit. The 
outer world is God's thought shown to our eyes ; the in- 
ner world is God's thought become conscious of itself. 
The outer world of sense has no existence except as a 
manifestation of the spirit. And there is but one spirit 
after all, the Spirit of Nature, der Naturgeist, — God, ex- 
tending far beyond our little self. You cannot compre- 
hend him, if you look only within. In nature you see the 
life of humanity typified, symbolized, crystallized, as it 
were; for spirit comes to itself in man only because it 
has first expressed itself in nature and is now striving in 
us to become conscious of its own work. 139 

For a time, now, Schelling reigned as the "Prince of 
our Romanticists". "The great mystery has been solv- 
ed", exclaimed Novalis; "the veil has been lifted from 
the goddess of Sais". Yet, although Schelling opened the 
way into the inner nature of things, his philosophy did 
not logically prove itself satisfactory either. Analogies 
with him outweigh reason : — content means all with him, 
form very little. But the aim of the Romanticists was to 
harmonize content with form. 

Nor could Hegel's Idealism give satisfaction. With 
him form throws content out of balance. Reason be- 
comes nature in order to become spirit. The absolute 
exists first as reason, then as nature, and finally as living 



138 Cf. Reiff, P. F., "Plotin und die deutsche Romantik," Eu- 
phorion, Vol. 19 (Leipzig, 1912), p. 600. 

139 Cf. Haym, op. cit., p. 586. See Erdmann, B, "History of 
Philosophy," London and New York, 1800, Vol. II, pp. 565-591; 
also Noack, Ludwig, "Schelling und die Philosophic der Roman- 
tik," Berlin, 1859. 



76 REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 

spirit. In the final analysis thought and reality are 
identical. But when thought and reality are regarded as 
one, and when, in place of human thought, is substituted 
the knowledge which pertains to the Absolute, it is but 
natural that human purposes and needs, whose force is 
felt by us mainly because we are finite beings, should be 
overlooked in the absorbing interest of that one Being 
which is all-complete, and embraces and realizes in it- 
self all that exists, and which, consequently, has neither 
needs nor postulates. 140 

Besides, as our Romanticists went along, and with 
their penetrating and inquiring minds dug deeper and 
deeper into the mysteries of ages, their belief in a pan- 
theistic god grew weaker and weaker, while that in a 
Biblical God grew stronger and stronger, and, with it, 
their belief in a Personal God. Jean Paul (1763-1825) 
who was not only at one with the Romanticists, but in a 
way their law-giver, had said : 'There is in our heart a 
spirit-world which, like the rays of the sun, issues forth 
from the world of matter. I mean the inner universe of 
virtue, of beauty, and of truth : three inner worlds which 
have neither parts, nor effluxes, nor stolons ; nor are they 
copies of the exterior world. This inner universe, more 
beautiful and more admirable even than is the external 
one, needs a heaven other than the one that vaults above 
us, — a higher world than that heated by the sun."'- 41 

By these words were born new inspirations to the Ro- 
manticists. To be active agents in effecting a transform- 
ation of the unpoetic world into one of poetry, at once 
true, good, and beautiful, and thus to bring about the 



140 Cf. Walker, Leslie J., "Theories of Knowledge," New York, 
1911, pp. 88. 90, and 91. 

141 "Es gibt eine in unserem Herzen hangende Geisterwelt, die 
mitten aus dem Gewolbe der Korperwelt wie eine warme Sonne 
bricht. Ich meine das innere Universum der Tugend, der Schon- 
heit und der Wahrheit, drei innere Himmel und Welten die weder 
Theile, noch Ausfliisse und Absenker, noch Kopieen der ausseren 

sind" "Dieses innere Universum, das noch herrlicher und be- 

wunderungswerther ist als das aussere, braucht einen anderen 
Himmel als den iiber uns und eine hohere Welt, als sich an einer 
Sonne warmt." (Jean Paul, "Das Kampanerthal," Leipzig, pp. 50 
and 51). 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 77 

harmony of life that alone constitutes true enlighten- 
ment, and from which their age with its artificial class 
distinction and its predominance of the intellect over 
sentiment, its conflict between authority and freedom, 
its philosophic doubt and moral problems, was far re- 
moved, came to be their final and highest mission. 142 

Two distinct tendencies can in all these endeavors be 
clearly observed : one dealing with the human individual 
only, and one dealing with his relation to God. When 
Frederic Schlegel came to Berlin he was full of the 
first; when he left, of the second. To the "Declaration 
of the Rights of Man", therefore, came to be opposed the 
"Declaration of the Rights of God", in the ignoring or 
forgetfulness of which he had come to see the true cause 
of the evil that had brought society to ruin. "Separate 
religion entirely from morals", he says, "and you have 
the force of evil in man in its purest form .... Here the 
separation of that which is indivisible punishes itself 
the most severely." 143 

Klopstock (1724-1813) had shown his age how noble 
a gift genius is when unprof aned ; — when employed only 
in revealing to mankind, under the attractive form of the 
fine arts, the generous, self-sacrificing sentiments and 
religious hopes of Christianity. Consequently, the "Blue 
Flower", the "Divine Maiden", the "Veiled Maiden", 
with the Romanticists, meant the spiritual life that had 
become lost among their contemporaries : — to find either 
meant to restore the AGE OF LIGHT that bears within 
itself Innocence as well as the GOLDEN AGE. 144 In 
their search after truth they threw open the doors of 
the whole world, the world of thought and the world of 
feeling, bound together by Symbolism. By Allegory or 
Symbolism the semblance of the finite is linked to the 



142 Cf. "Schlegel's Jugendschriften," op. cit., II, pp. 338-357; 
also the preface to the second edition of Tieck's "William Lovell"; 
also Ewald, Oskar, "Die Probleme der Romantik als Grundfragen 
der Gegenwart," Berlin, 1005; also Geschwind, "Die etischen Neu- 
erungen der Frueh-Romantik," Bern, 1903, p. 35 ff". 

143 Jugendschriften, op. cit., II, p. 304 (translated). 

144 Cf. Boehme's "Aurora" and Schleiermacher's "Reden ueber 
die Religion"; also Turner, op. cit., p. 440 f., and Falkenberg, op. 
cit., p. 480 ff. 



78 REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 

truth of the Infinite. In other words : — all beauty is alle- 
gory; the highest beauty is spiritual beauty. Beauty is 
symbolic representation of the Infinite. 145 

Two ways were open to the Romanticists : on one side 
the pantheistic, with a symbolism that meant nothing less 
than the establishment of the "New Romantic Mythol- 
ogy" ; on the other, the Biblical side, with nothing less 
than the adoption of the symbolism of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church. 146 Here the members of the Frueh-Roman- 
tik, or the Berlin-Jena group, 147 came to disagree in their 
opinions, which caused the dissolution of their school 
(1902), — to make room for the so-called Spaet-Roman- 
tik, founded by Gorres, Araim, and Brentano at Heidel- 
berg, and which, as a concerted movement, lasted from 
1806-1808. Its mission was to carry into practical life, 
social and political, the ideals which the older Romanti- 
cists had framed. 148 

It may be well to remember here, that this latter period 
of German Romanticism, coincides, in point of time, with 
the deepest and most radical degradation of the German 
people. August 1, 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine 



145 Cf. Schlegel's Jugendschriften, op. cit., II, pp. 427 and 428. 
See also A. W. Schlegel's "Berlin Lectures," Vol. I, p. 90 fr. 

146 Cf. Wernaer, op. cit., p. 148. 

147 Frederic Schlegel left Berlin in September, 1799, to take up 
his abode in Jena, and with this change of residence the central 
activity of the Romantic School was shifted from the former to 
the latter city. 

148 See Bobeth, Johannes, "Die Zeitschriften der Romantik," 
Leipzig, 1911, p. 161 ff. Cf. Wernaer, op. cit., pp. 280-302 and 307 f. ; 
also cf. Porterfield, A. W., "An Outline of German Romanticism," 
New York and London, 1914, p. 56. Heidelberg, which at this time 
could boast of such names as Thibaut, Creuzer, Fries, Boeckh, and 
Daub, and was on the point of getting Tieck, while enjoying the 
sympathy of such men as the Grimm Brothers, Savigny, the Bois- 
serees, etc., was certainly just then in a particularly happy posi- 
tion to popularize the best traditions of the land. These men lent 
their helping hand to the Einsiedler Zeitung, the official organ of 
the Heidelberg Romanticists. The journal lasted only, for want of 
support, from January to August, 1808. "Yet," says Galland, 
"ihren Zweck als Leuchtkugel und Feuersignal hat sie vollkommen 
erfuellt" (op. cit., p. 121). See also, ibid., pp. 118 and 120. There are 
412 pages in the journal, as published in bookform, and there are 
about 100 different articles, all of which, excepting a very few by 
F. Schlegel and F. Wilken, are of a Germanic theme. Cf. Steig, 
Reinhold, "Zur Einsiedlerzeitung," Euphorion, Vol. 19, Leipzig, 
1912, pp. 229-241. 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 79 

was formed, which was to serve Napoleon as but a more 
powerful instrument in clinching and maintaining his 
hold on their affairs. August 6, of the same year, saw 
the abdication of the imperial office, of the crown of 
Charlemagne, by Francis II, i. e., the formal dissolution 
of the so-called Holy Roman Empire. The battle of Jena 
was fought on October 14, and, on October 27, Napoleon 
entered Berlin in triumph. 149 

However, with Fichte, the best minds of the German 
nation, and amongst them our new Romanticists, Gorres 
being the foremost, felt that the restoration of the Ger- 
man State, if it was to be accomplished at all, was even 
more a moral task than a political one. With reason 
deified, and God set aside, self-devotion had disappeared. 
For self-devotion means self-sacrifice and self-sacrifice 
is based on disinterestedness, which latter, however, is 
obtained from the moral or religious faculty alone. But 
with self-devotion and self-sacrifice gone, true patriotism 
was also gone, for, in the words of Bishop Turner, "pa- 
triotism is essentially unselfish." 150 Religion, a positive 
religion, then, had to be restored among the people be- 
fore liberation could be thought of. 

To bring about the reform but one thing is needed, 
said Gorres, Arnim, and Brentano, namely : that the Ger- 
mans return to the sources of their own language and 
poetry, and liberate from the dusty documents of their 
ancestral past, that noble spirit, that Christian enthu- 
siasm of old, which, unrecognized, is still sleeping in 
them. 

From hidden treasures were now brought forth long- 
lost precious spiritual material. Arnim and Brentano 
issued "Des Knaben Wunderhorn", 153 a collection of old 
German folk-songs. The figure of the vigorous youth 



149 Cf. Gebhardt, B., "Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte," 
Stuttgart, 1892, Vol. II, p 386 fr. ; also Priest, op. cit., p. 40 ff. 

150 Sermon on "Patriotism" (printed in the "Catholic Union 
and Times," June 5, 1919, p. 7). 

151 See Arnim, L. A. von, and Brentano, C. M., "The Boy's 
Wonderhorn in Library of the World's Best Literature," Vol. IV, 
PP. 2343-2352. 



80 REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 

upon the title-page riding along upon a bare-backed 
steed, swinging the horn of song in his raised hand, 
seemed like that of a herald summoning the scattered 
nation under the standard of popular song to lead them 
against the philistinism of the day. 152 

Gorres, on his part, produced the "Teutschen Volks- 
biicher" (1807). With a voice unable to control the tu- 
mult of long-suppressed wrath, shame, love, wonder, 
hope, he told his people of the priceless treasures of com- 
mon thought and fancy stored up for days of future 
greatness in the despised popular tale and legend, in 
books like "Fortunatus" or "Till Eulenlenspiegel", "Our 
Lord's Childhood" or "The Seven Wise Masters", in al- 
manacs and dream-books, in abstracts of history and old 
prophesies. To be sure, said Gorres, these books belong 
primarily to the lower classes of the people, to the rude 
and uneducated, but on that very account they have pre- 
served more firmly what is in true accord with the na- 
tional taste, — with what is nutritious and helpful to 
all. 153 

Through the above studies our Heidelberg friends had 
become enthusiastic admirers of the "Golden Middle 
Age" and did everything in their power to get their 
countrymen interested in its art, its poetry, its religion, 
its ideals and endeavors, without, however, looking ask- 
ance at that which was good and great among the peo- 
ples of the Orient and those of Ancient Greece and Rome, 
or that which was good in their own days. They recog- 
nized in the above age preeminently the age, not of great 
machines, nor of great financial combinations standing 
over sullen and reluctant laborers, but of great workmen 
and of the delight in craftsmanship which great workmen 



152 In these old folk-songs the German romanticists saw, and 
that rightly so, the expression of a common consciousness, the 
result of a national organization which united the people in a free 
public life, in guilds and trade associatons, in common worship 
and in common mirth. Cf. Rieser, Fer., "Des Knaben Wunder- 
horn und seine Quellen," Dortmunt, 1908. 

153 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., I, pp. 174-253 (Die teutschen Volks- 
buecher), esp. the introduction, pp. 178-196 and the Epilog, pp. 218- 
249. Cf. also Galland J., Joseph von Gorres, Freiburg, 1876, p. 
121 ff. ; also Francke, K., op. cit., p. 460 ff. 



REACTION AGAINST RATIONALISM 81 

can feel. And that which was in their hearts and in 
their confessions — that incessant and insistent vision of 
a world to come and of a divine order which earthly- 
eyes cannot see, but which is manifest in the Cross — was 
also in their action and achievement. 154 

Our Heidelberg friends were not to be disappointed in 
their endeavors. National feelings and national confi- 
dence build themselves up upon these pictures of the 
early days of the homeland, strengthened, however, by 
the youthful life which progress in development had 
called forth, while the people wished to rediscover the 
vigorous simplicity and nobility of mind and heart of 
their forefathers. And never, according to Francke, has 
a people undergone a more wonderful rejuvenation in 
the very years following the downfall of Prussia, 
1806 ; — never has there been a more striking illustration 
of the indestructibility of spiritual forces. 155 

The days in Heidelberg, however, were numbered. 
When the Rationalists, Voss and his followers, realized 
the trend of the activities of the Romanticists, i. e., their 
sympathy with the ideals and the inner spirit-life of the 
Middle Ages and their inclination in favor of Catholi- 
cism, their antagonism knew no bounds, so that our three 
friends found it finally impossible to continue their work 
at Heidelberg, and they, therefore, decided to retire from 
the field (1808). 156 The work of reconstruction, how- 
ever, begun here, was happily to be continued by Gorres. 



154 Consult Walsh, James J., "The Thirteenth Greatest of Cen- 
turies," New York, 1912. 

155 Cf. Francke, op. cit., p. 429. 

156 Cf. "Gothe und the Romantik," Briefe mit Erlaeuterungen 
(C. S. Schiiddekopf und O. Walzel), Weimar, 1899, Part II, pp. 
130-136.— Letter of Arnim to Gothe, Sept. 29, 1868. 



82 MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 



CHAPTER VII. 

CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM IN 
THEIR RELATION TO GORRES. 

Rationalism, in its final analysis, was a protest of the 
human mind against the Divine Word, in the name and 
in favor of the Human Reason. To set things right once 
more, the Divine Word, Divine Revelation, had to be re- 
stored, — the design of Revelation being not to create 
something new, to create in man a religious nature, but 
to rectify and control that religious nature which the 
Fall has not destroyed, but only perverted. 

Before the Fall man's religious nature and tendencies 
rested in their proper object; — a God truly known and 
truly loved, both for what He is in Himself and what He 
is in relation to the creature. The introduction of sin, 
being the introduction of darkness and error into man's 
views of God, destroyed love of Him as seen in its 
proper character; and as the Fall also necessitated the 
assumption of a hostile, or punitive attitude on the part 
of God, it disturbed the flow of grateful affection which 
His benefits had before produced. Light and Love, the 
twin-sisters of primeval religion, thus became Darkness 
and Fear, the presiding spirits of man's religion in his 
fallen state, and the chosen agencies whereby the do- 
minion usurped over him by the Tempter, was confirmed. 
Christ came into the world to restore to mankind Light 
and Love, and to set at naught Darkness and Fear." 157 
"But", as Holy Scripture says, "the world received Him 
not". The Children of the World rejected His LIGHT 
and LOVE, and satisfied themselves with the light and 
love as it comes from nature alone. With the men of the 
Enlightenment (Aufklarung), the endeavor to do away 
with Divine Revelation in favor of natural revelation 
alone, ended in the full apostacy from God and the sur- 



157 Cf. Gorres, J. J "H. Voss und seine Todesfeier in Heidel- 
berg," Strassburg, 1826, p. 13; also Schellberg, "Ausgewahlte 
Werke," op. cit., I, p. 254 ff. (Religion in der Geschichte). 



MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 83 

rendering themselves unto the deification of the creature 
in its twofold aspect: Mind and Matter, the Ego and the 
World. With Kant, for example, the so-called revelation 
is only the mythical copy of the moral law already im- 
planted in our nature, while with Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel nature and God are identical. 158 

Yet, even in these endeavors, we can but see the seri- 
ous efforts of man to understand the meaning of the 
world and of life, and to satisfy the craving of the human 
heart to be one with that Being to whom man primarily 
owes his existence and from whom he hopes, in one 
way or other, final salvation. By means of them man 
can penetrate, and did penetrate, the deepest truths of 
the natural order. But here these efforts halt; — man 
has discovered, and is discovering facts, but does not, nor 
can he penetrate the mysterious reasons for existence. 
This was to be the mission of the WORLD OF FAITH, 
the realm of theological speculation, as opened unto us 
by Christ. 

Through Christ those things hitherto only hinted at 
to the initiated, and revealed to them under symbols and 
images, became visible upon the historical page. The 
Resurrection of the Dead could not be fully compre- 
hended by the world until the miracle of Easter Day; 
the traditions of the Jews, 159 and even of the Gentiles, 
concerning the Virgin that was to conceive and bring 
forth a son, found their realization in the Stable of Beth- 
lehem; the sacramental idea, so obvious in all heathen 
rites, however debased, could not be grasped until the 
institution of the Sacraments ; the sacrifices of the heath- 
ens, monstrous as they often were, as well as the em- 
phatically mystical offerings of the Jews, received their 
ratification to some extent, and their fulfillment alto- 
gether, when the Lamb Immaculate shed His blood upon 
the Cross; and the Demon of Socrates ceased to be a 
fable, when there came unto the world the Spirit of 



158 The foregoing forms the very essence of the standpoint 
from which Gorres sets out in his opposition to rationalism. Cf. 
"Religion in der Geschichte," by JJ. Gorres, Schellberg, op. ct., I, 
p. 254 ff. 

159 Isaias, VII, 14, 



84 MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 

Truth to guide into all truth, and to abide with man for 
ever. That which prophets and kings had desired in 
vain to see, was now the possession of all, of learned and 
unlearned, of rich and poor, of high and low. All were 
called to the Mystical Fountain, and invited to drink; — 
each according to his wants, and according to his tal- 
ents. 160 

Three classes of observers, now, have stood, and al- 
ways will stand, looking upon the vision that Christ has 
disclosed : the dogmatic, the devout, and the mystic. For 
the theologian it is to observe, to classify, and to deduce ; 
to see sources and connections, and to bring the whole 
together into a systematized body of truths. The de- 
vout, endowed as he is with the quick instinct that love 
alone can give, hears the voice of God and perceives His 
footsteps everywhere. Between these two there stands 
the Mystic, as hard to define as is the poet or the musi- 
cian. However, each of these three men must to some 
extent possess the qualifications of the others, if he is to 
become expert even in his own field. The theologian 
must pray, or he will not understand; the devout man 
must hold a defined creed, or his prayer will vanish into 
dreaming; and the mystic must both understand and 
love, or he will not see clearly. 161 

Yet the Mystic has a gift all his own, — that of "Divine 
Intuition", as it is often called. Looking upon Nature 
and Revealed Truth, he sees depths in them that others do 
not; the historical facts which the theologian classifies, 
and in whose presence the devout find material for 
prayer, glow for him in depth beyond depth of inex- 
pressible beauty and meaning; he sees their correlations 
and self-evidences, and believes, not only because he 
hears, but because, to some extent, he also sees and 
handles. 

In the degree now that these reflections will awaken in 
the Mystic admiration and love for the Higher Beauty, 
the Higher Good, the Higher Power, that reveals itself to 



160 Cf. Benson, R. H., "Mysticism" (Westminster Lectures), 
London and Edinburgh, 1907, p. 15 ff. 

161 Cf. Benson, op. cit., p. 17 ff. 



MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 85 

him everywhere: in nature, in dogma, in tradition, — so 
will he strive to reach out for that Higher Being, and de- 
sire to unite himself to him and to be one with him. But 
this reaching out, and the desire of linking oneself to the 
Infinite, to become one with him, is exactly that which 
constitutes the essence of Mysticism. Mysticism has, 
therefore, not inaptly, been called the Art of Divine 
Union. Louismet speaks of it as an active intercourse 
of the loving soul with the loving God in the secret of 
the heart. 162 

If this be so, Mysticism must, of necessity, express the 
inmost core of religion, because in basing itself, as it 
does, upon the Nearness of God and the Fatherhood of 
God, it, ipse facto, conveys the sterling truth of the near- 
ness of man to man, i. e., the Brotherhood of all Men. 
Mysticism, is thus, must be thus, the greatest incentive 
to works of altruism, to self-sacrifice, — to devotion on 
the noblest scale. Sympathy, love, benevolence, mutual 
helpfulness, and encouragement must be the practical 
outcome, whether of the individual mystic, or the nation 
in whose fundamental beliefs and hopes mysticism is en- 
shrined. 

If this, in a way, holds true of all mysticism (reli- 
gious), it is essentially true of Christian Mysticism. 
"By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if 
ye have love for one another", says the Lord Jesus, the 
Master of the mystical life. The true mystic, and only 
the Christian mystic can really be a true mystic, can 
never be a self-centered individual. He must recognize 
the above elements within himself. A mysticism which 
seeks its life in inactive contemplation only, is false, and 
not the mysticism taught by Christ, of whom it is said 
that "He went about doing good". The god who "work- 
eth hitherto" is not found by any who leave their practi- 
cal energies unused. The mystic must live religion, and 
not merely feel and profess it. 

Mysticism may be said to have its root in the so-called 
Inner Way, the way that leads to the knowledge of God 



162 Cf. Louismet, Dom S., "Mysticism True and False," New 
York, 1918, pp. 10 and 18. 



86 MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 

by love, which is so characteristic a feature in the mys- 
tic . Knowledge of God by Reason or Faith is an indirect 
knowledge, a knowledge d tori, or knowledge ob- 

tained from without. Knowledge of God by love, on the 
other hand, is knowledge — immediate, from within. It 
is direct infusion of divine light and sweetness and 
strength, not an indirect conclusion from facts or prin- 
ciples. 

The Inner Way played a great role with the Romanti- 
cists, and so also with Gorres. Gorres was a man of I 
Inner Truth. In him Plato nism. or the South, and Aris- 
totelianism. or the North, as he expresses it, :;: or Mind 
and Heart. Understanding and Love, were harmoniously 
blended. As a Platonist, the whole world of experience 
is. with him. made to pass through the glowing furnace 
of personal feeling in order that it may be purified of the 
dross and only the pure gold of spiritual sentiment re- 
main. As an Aristotelian, he throws the searchlight of 
knowledge on the whole field of human endeavor in or- 
der to reveal what is real and of permanent value. 194 

Relative to this. Menzel says of him, "No doubt Gorres 
has the most dignified philosophical style, for his sys- 
tem has the most sublime unity, because it is entirely 
mystical; and in its variety again, it has the greatest 
abundance of beauties, because the mystical unity is 
veiled in a comprehensive symbolism of mind, nature, 
and history. This gives to the writings of Gorres a 
biblical strength and oriental splendor. In studying his 
works, we imagine ourselves in a vast, sublime, and dar- 
ing Gothic cathedral, where lofty arches, columns, and 
vaults, are wonderfully interlaced, and supported on 
simple points, with a whole world of statues built up in 
them, and. hovering over all. an expression of holiness, 
the majesty of an invisible God. while a trumpet-tone re- 
sounds in the temple as His herald. The clerical unction 
and the prophetic voice of Gorres are throughout pro- 



163 berg, op. cit.. I. p. I2r: :.e: "Nord und Sud- 
deutschland." 

164 '-V.. -Catholic University Bulletin," Vol. 17 
(191: -" -tide : Dante as a Philosopher. 



MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 87 

portionate to his dogmatism. This ought always to be, 
and is, in Gorres the work of a creative impulse, the 
spontaneous and sincere revelation of its innate idea; 
and is exactly, as in the case of the poet, the free growth 
of a peculiar spiritual flower, and under the most varied 
modes of training, is still the overmastering power of 
nature, which determines its own character." 165 

Gorres was a Romanticist, and let us say, a born Ro- 
manticist, — and all Romanticists are, in a way 
mystics, in so far as they advocate and possess the 
Inner Way. Galland says that who would want to write 
a history of the Romantic School, ought, necessarily, to 
study the life of Gorres. Tieck, Steffens, Schlegel, Bren- 
tano, may each represent, to a greater or lesser extent, 
one or the other specially good or bad side of Romanti- 
cism, but the life of Gorres is the most successful and 
truest representation and portrait of the so much lauded 
and so much maligned Romanticism in all its phases : — 
it constitutes the personification of its ideals and aims, — 
not, however, of its sins and excrescenses. 166 

Gorres' superiority lies in the greater nobility, eleva- 
tion, and depth of the emotional content of the whole of 
his activity, just because of his truer and therefore 
deeper mysticism. The religious mysticism of most of 
the other Romanticists was vague and indefinite. That 
of Gorres was more definite from the beginning. He 
was at no time a pantheist, but .believed in a personal 
God, immanent, yes, but also transcendent. At the early 
age of twenty-three even, in a letter from Paris to his 
fiancee, he speaks of "das Ideal der hochsten Schon- 
heit", 167 i. e., of that ideal beauty which is a reflection of 
the Infinite and which reveals itself to us through 
love, — a gleam from the face of God, as it were, reflected 
through whatever is grand and beautiful. The meaning 
Christ has given to the word LOVE, as the highest sym- 



165 Menzel, W., "German Literature" (trans, by C. C. Felton), 
Boston, 1840, Vol. I, p. 271. 

166 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 112 f. (translated). 

167 "Gorres' Gesammelte Briefe," I, p. 7 (Letter of Nov. 27, 
1799). 



88 MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 

bol and expression of the soul's deepest need and most 
perfect attitude toward God and man, filled Gorres with 
light more profound* and with the fervor of a more di- 
vine enthusiasm. 

As a true mystic (in the above sense of the w r ord) 
Gorres was a sworn foe of mere intellectualism, as well 
as of a fanciful sentimentalism. "May empiricism and 
speculation never separate from each other", says 
Gorres, "and knowledge is on a safe foundation." 168 He 
presents to us harmony, a humanistic solution of 
life's perplexities. He teaches obedience to the laws of 
human nature in the life to be lived here on earth, but 
demands also a preparation for a life to come. His 
genius understood it to unite opposing terms: the finite 
with the infinite, realism with idealism, romanticism 
with classicism, sympathy with selection, freedom with 
obedience, love with duty, the intellectual with the ma- 
terial, mind with heart. Gorres was, therefore, pecu- 
liarly well fitted to act successfully in the reaction 
against the rationalism of the times. And he was indeed 
more successful than any of his contemporary Romanti- 
cists, as we shall see, since he was broader in his sym- 
pathies and in every way more hopeful, more helpful, 
and more humane than any of them. 

For, although Gorres travelled with Novalis the celes- 
tial stairway in search of the Blue Flower, Love and 
Religion, the spiritual life that was lost, the primitive 
days of King Arctur and Sophia in the fairy tale, before 
they withdrew into the North where they came to be 
blocked in by the ice and snow of the insiduous ration- 
alism, — he, unlike Novalis, returned to translate his 
mission into terms intelligible to his age: — nay more, 
he derived his mission directly from the great life of the 
world, as it surged about him. He well understood, with 
Martineau, that so long as ideals are dreams of future 
possibilities and not faiths in present realities, so long 
as they are mere self-paintings of the yearning spirit 



168 "Nimmer scheide sich Empirie und Spekulation, und die 
Erkenntnis ist geborgen." — Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 73. 



MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 89 

and not its personal surrender to immediate communion 
with an Infinite Perfection, they have no more solidity 
and steadiness than floating air-bubbles, gay in the sun- 
shine and broken by the passing wind. Gorres did not 
satisfy himself with the narrow confines of Romantic 
theories : — he took a step further into the broad field of 
practical life. That which Romanticism was teaching 
him, he modified and made it serviceable to everybody. 

Again, the works of Novalis impress us as happy 
children playing in the sunlight. With Gorres the child- 
ren are there too, and so is the sunlight ; but there is also 
the grim earnestness of life. Novalis' works deal with 
the final establishment of an age of poetry; Gorres real- 
izes, with Dante, the ravages sin is making in the world, 
and wants man's purification and redemption. 

With Tieck the sunlight is often wanting, and a heavy 
gloom takes its place. Fate has not altogether dis- 
appeared. Not so with Gorres. His belief in a benign 
Providence illumines all the pages of his works. "Fate", 
says Madame de Stael, "counts sentiments of men for 
nothing, but Providence judges of action according to 
those sentiments" .... "Poetry" — and of course prose as 
well — "must necessarily create a world of a different na- 
ture when its object is to paint the work of destiny, 
which is both blind and deaf, maintaining an endless 
contest with mankind, and when it attempts to describe 
that intelligent order over which the Supreme Being 
continually presides — that Being whom our hearts 
supplicate, and who mercifully answers our petitions !" 169 

With a mystic's eye Gorres looked down upon the 
broad field of human endeavor, upon its clashing enthu- 
siasm, its discordant systems, the ebb and flow of its 
ever-changing belief, and he drew from the contempla- 
tion a lesson widely different from that of most of his 
contemporaries. He recognized those moral principles 
which shine with an unchanging splendor above the 
fluctuating opinions; he discovered the great laws of 



169 Madame de Stael, "Germany," New York, 1861, Vol. II, p. 
200. 



90 MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 

eternal development which preside over and direct the 
progress of belief, infuse order into the seeming chaos, 
and reveal in every apparent aberration the traces of a 
superintending Providence. Relative to this, Menzel 
points out the works of Gorres as being distinguished 
from all other structures of the human mind, by the ex- 
pression of the Christian, the holy, and the ecclesias- 
tical. 170 

It is then not from a literary, or a merely scientific 
standpoint that we must judge Gorres. He was a moral- 
ist and an ethical teacher. What Rationalism had de- 
stroyed he meant to restore: Faith and Love, — the tid- 
ings from above, as brought by Christ. His spirituality 
made him such, and enabled him to assume the threefold 
leadership: the religious, the political, and the social, in 
which he stands forth upon the world's great platform. 
And the immeasurable services rendered in this capacity 
to the cause of religion, fatherland, and humanity, may 
well make us forget the scientific shortcomings by which 
we find his works frequently accompanied. 171 His deep 
religious conviction regarding a Personal God and Im- 
mortality, which he had imbibed in his childhood days, 
and which an education in the sense of the enlightenment 
had not been able wholly to root out, together with an 
insatiable thirst after truth, and nothing but the truth, 172 
enabled him to give utterance to, and arouse from its 
slumber, that Religious Idealism for which the Germans 
are so noted. 

And as it existed within himself, so Gorres felt him- 
self urged to express it, — with the same force, the same 
clearness, the same poesy, the same tone. He speaks in 
figures, images, symbols, — in ornate, majestic periods, 
and searches all history and all literature, and all science 



170 Cf. op. cit., 1, p. 128. Se also Schellberg, op. cit., II, p. 45 
(Letter of March 22, 1800) — Gorres writes : "Es schwebt eine un- 
sichtbare Hand iiber uns, die uns leitet, aber es ist eine freund- 
liche Hand." 

171 In "Politische Schriften," Vol. I, p. 81 f. (Vorwort), Marie 
Gorres gives reasons for those shortcomings. 

172 "Gorres' Politische Schriften," by Marie Gorres, Munich, 
1854, Vol. I, p. IX (Preface). 



MYSTICISM AND ROMANTICISM AND GORRES 91 

too, for his illustrations. 173 It is, therefore, by no means 
easy to read Gorres' works intelligently. The danger lies 
in mistaking what is but literary form and mere figure 
of speech for the hidden meaning of things. A writer 
asks, "Who can read Goethe till he has mastered the 
grammar of one of the richest languages of the world? 
Or who can enjoy Dante till he has learned to read him 
familiarly in the liquid original?" Similarly, we ask, 
"Who can read and enjoy Gorres, till he has learned to 
read the mind and the heart of the man that is behind it 
all?" Gorres desired to see his nation one great family of 
noble, happy beings. Some one says, "The Romanticists 
want to teach the Germans to see deeper, to think higher, 
and to feel truer." 174 More so must this be said of 
Gorres. He could not endure it quietly to see his people 
oppressed and deceived and robbed of all that is nobler 
and better in man. And feeling himself called, and that 
divinely so, to be the teacher and leader of his people, 175 
he meant to be such in the fullest sense of the word. 



173 Cf. Gumposch, V. S., "Die philosophische Literatur der 
Deutschen, von 1400 bis auf unsere Tage," Regensburg, 1851, p. 400 
(Boerne admires the style of Gorres, but complains of the pres- 
ence of too much religion). 

174 "Die Romantiker wollen die Deutschen tiefer sehen, grosser 
denken, wahrer fiihlen lehren." — Joachimi, Marie, "Die Weltan- 
schauung der Romantik," Jena und Leipzig, 1905, p. VII (Preface). 

175 Cf. "Politische Schriften," I, p. 4. 



92 LIFE OF GORRES 



CHAPTER VIII. 

* 
LIFE OF GORRES, AS ROOTED IN CHRISTIAN 
MYSTICISM, IN ITS STRUGGLE AGAINST 
RATIONALISM. 

Johann Joseph Gorres was born on the feast of the 
Conversion of St. Paul, January 25, 1776, A. D., in the 
city of Coblenz, on the romantic banks of the river 
Rhine, in the traditional land of Christian piety, valor, 
beauty, poetry, and art. 176 His father, Morris Gorres, a 
timber merchant of substantial means, was a man of 
the highest integrity and of a dignity of character which 
commanded the respect of every one. The mother, 
Helena Theresia Gorres, nee Mazza, Italian by descent, 
as the name indicates, was a quiet and thrifty house- 
keeper, and free from that excitability so characteristic 
in the Southerner. Both parents were deeply religious 
and failed not to impress early upon the minds of their 
children their relationship to God in its various bear- 
ings. 177 

Thus nature, home, religious, and social life worked 
together, in the days of childhood, to impress upon the 
character of Gorres an indelible mark, namely the im- 
press of nature's warmth and nobility, seconded by the 
inculcation of Christian ideals, which failed not to de- 
velop in him an elevated turn of mind, a deep sense of 
divine things, and an aspiration after rectitude which 
never left him. 178 

At the proper age young Gorres was sent to a school 



176 J. N. Sepp, a pupil and admirer of Gorres, has immortal- 
ized the sceneries about the birth-place of his master very fitly 
in the following lines: 

"Weithin und breithin ergiest sich der Rhein 
Kirchen und Thuerme begruessen uns drein, 
Berge und Burgen umthronen ihn schier, 
Friedliche Menschen umwohnen ihn hier." 

— Gorres, Berlin, 1806, p. 6. 

177 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 9 f. 

178 Read letter of Gorres to Miss K. Lassaulx, Paris, Jan. 30, 
1800 (Schellberg, op. cit., II, pp. 19-28). 



LIFE OF GORRES 93 

for boys, a so-called Vorschule (preparatory school), and 
at the age of nine to the Latin school, which, for two 
hundred years, had been connected with the Jesuit Col- 
lege (Gymnasium) at Coblenz, but which latter had 
now been taken over by the government, 179 and had for 
teachers mostly professors of the so-called NEW 
LEARNING. There is still extant a noteworthy certi- 
ficate, which Gorres received on the completion of his 
course at the Latin school, in August, 1789. It reads as 
follows: "Felicissimum ingenium, diligentia ingenio non 
satis congrua, progressus satis magnus, mores 
pueriles." 180 

In the fall of the same year (1789) , Gorres entered the 
Gymnasium, referred to above. Here he distinguished 
himself in such branches of study as history, physics, 
physiology, the natural sciences, geography, and astro- 
nomy. Endowed with a mind mathematically acute and 
quick of comprehension, he had a surpassing facility of 
acquisition for that which interested him, but cared 
little for the merely technical parts of education. 181 His 
social relations as student were significant as well as 
pleasant. His high intelligence, his "mores pueriles", 
and his love for exploits of all kinds made him, not only 
a favorite with his companions and fellow students, but 
also their leader, while his kindliness and cordiality 
opened for him the doors everywhere. 



179 Clement XIV, by the brief "Dominus ac Redemptor Nos- 
ter," dated July 21, 1773, yielding to the demands of the princes of 
the House of Bourbon, suppressed the Society of Jesus. On the 
publication of the Bull, Maria Theresa, who had so far held back 
from the general attack that was then raging against the Society, 
especially in France, pressed by her ministers and counsellors, did 
not hesitate to put it into execution. Over 200 gymnasia, amongst 
them that of Coblenz, were taken over by the government under 
the plea that nothing had been done to keep in touch with modern 
development. (Frederic II, King of Prussia, believed, with Lord 
Bacon and Leibniz, that, if he would have really good schools, he 
must have those of the Jesuits). See: Alzog op. cit., Cincinnati 
ed., Ill, pp. 569-572; Atkinson, C. F., "A History of Germany," 1715- 
1815, London, 1908, p. 331 f.; Theiner, "Geschichte der geistlichen 
Bildungsanstalten," Mainz, 1835, p. 289 ff. 

180 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 23. See also Schellberg, W., Joseph 
von Gorres, M. Gladbach, 1913, p. 5. 

181 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., II, p. 274 f. (Letter to Jac. Grimm, 
May 23, 1819). 



94 LIFE OF GORP.I5 

Gorres early developed great fondness for reading, 
showing preference for history, accounts of travel, folk- 
lore, and legends, as well as for religious literature, and 
he loved art and antiquities, for the study of which 
latter he had ample opportunities among the old 
ruins in the environment.-- His mind became thus early 
a vast storehouse of informatory details of all kinds. 
The great past especially that of Chivalry and Noble 
Deeds, became to him a living presence and the talisman 
to lead him safely through life's dark paths. — on to the 
meadows of honor and righteous living. 

Gorres, however, by no means, remained untouched by 
the Zeitgeist. At the early age of twelve (1788), 
we find him composing a poem overflowing with sar- 
casm against the Papal Court and the Episcopal Court of 
Chur-Trier, which latter had its residence in Coblenz 
since 1756. : ^ 



182 Cf. Ibid., II, p. 51 :' Le::er :: Miss Lassaulx March ?j, 
1800). 

Zi. Ibid., p. 21 ff. Letter to Miss L Tan. 30, 1800); 

see also. Heinrich, J. B.. "Joseph von Gorres," Frankfurt a 1 1 
1867. I 

184 Cf. Sepp, op. cit.. p. 12. It may be well to take note here 
that while Deism. Atheism, and Rationalism were joining hands 
at this time, to carry on an unrelenting warfare against Christi- 
anity. Jai too. became active and influential in Catholic 

reign of Maria Theresa 

— - a spirit : S :- began to display 

itself: the odious placet, the "Piacetum regium," on all papal bulls 

.ose principles of 
to papal and episcopal power, which characterized the 
Fre: --acting and con- 

ing the "Oldest Daughter of the at the moment when 

:.ve need mbined energies and resources in 

order tc :und thr nto Catholic Germ - 

-e the relaxation -.-owing lukewarm - 

among a large portion of the clergy and laity, due to the adoption 
of the pri :■ i a most prolific 

soil for their growth and adoption. Joseph II, son and succe 
-aria Th ttle trouble to extend and dir: 

m. Embued with its max:- ell as with those of 

Illuminism and Enlightenment, ar. 1 by the counsels of 

Bar -vieden. and upheld by Joh: • of Hon- 

theim (Febr ;an bishop to the Elector of Treves 

Jansenism in Germany.— himself vain, 

lous. and egotistical, yet not devoid of benevolent feel 

he. Joseph II. became, by his perverted philanthropy, the curse 

A- Gebhardt, B.. "Handbuch der deutschen Ge- 

Vol. II, pf Atkinson, op. cit., p. 

328 ff.; Alzog, op. cit.. Ill, pp. 542-54 Hist.-pol. Blatter," Vol Z) 

pp. -tide: Joseph's II. "Regentencharakter 

und seine Reform. 



LIFE OF GORRES 95 

A year later, Gorres heard of the outbreak of the 
French Revolution: the literature of its advocates is 
wafted towards the Rhine; the high-sounding terms 
"Liberty", "Equality", "Universal Brotherhood", 
"Rights of Man", captivate him, as they did a Klopstock, 
a Herder, the Stolbergs, and many others. L'eing of an 
ardent temperament, clear and strong in intellect, and 
of a glowing imagination, he shared enthusiastically, 
even at this early age, in the liberal, patriotic aspira- 
tions, the deep-rooted disappointments and ardent hopes 
of his time. On leaving the Gymnasium, in 1793, he de- 
clined the opportunity that was offered him, of entering 
the University of Bonn for the study of medicine, in or- 
der to be free to take an active part in the struggle that 
promised to bring to the world universal happiness and 
prosperity. Youth sees but the outward glimmer and 
takes no note of the deceit and danger that may lurk be- 
neath. 185 

To further the interests of the Revolutionists, Gorres 
wrote in 1795, at least in its essence, and published in 
1797, his "Der Allgemeine Frieden, ein Ideal" (Univer- 
sal Peace, an Ideal). In most bitter and sarcastic terms 
he arrays before his tribunal Church and State, 186 Reli- 
gious and Civil Institutions, and advocates the "Eternal 
Peace", as demonstrated by Rousseau and St. Pierre, 
and as defended by Kant against the Empiricists. 187 



185 No doubt, Gorres thought of the aberrations of his youth 
when he wrote warningly, in 1810, "Vor allem huete die Jugend 
sich vor frevelhaftem Uebermute, nur in dem was sie vollbringt, 
nicht im guten Willen, mag sie die Vergangenheit uebertreffen. — 
Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. XX (Einleitung). 

186 Many of the French clergy and nobility who had fled from 
their native land, had sought and found refuge in Germany. Es- 
pecially in Coblenz, did many of them find open-hearted hospital- 
ity, among others the Dukes of Provence and Artois, the later 
kings Louis XVII and Charles X, whose uncle was the Elector 
Clemens Wenceslaus of Trier (Treves), previously referred to. In 
Coblenz, now, amidst the emigrant French nobility, the lascivious 
life of the Court of Versailles, in all its indifferentism and disdain 
towards religion and morals, was openly and freely avowed and 
continued, much to the annoyance of the better minds amongst the 
Germans. 

187 Cf. Schellberg, "Gesammelte Werke," op. cit., I, p. 8; also 
Galland, op. cit., p. 44. (In vindication of Gorres' attitude of this 
time, see Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. XX ff., Einleitung, and, ibid., II, 
p. 2.2 ff. (Letter of Gorres to Miss Lassaulx of Jan. 30, 1800) ; also 
Galland, op. cit., p. 31 ff. 



96 LIFE OF GORRES 

"Non, si male nunc, et olim sic erit," he says, hopefully, 
with Horace, 188 at the close of its introduction. Later in 
the year (1797) the paper was converted into "Das Rote 
Blatt" (The Red Letter), which, in turn, came to be 
"Ruebezahl" (Puck in Blue). All these publications are 
written in the spirit of a full-fledged Jacobin and son of 
the Zeitgeist, yet, even these distinguish themselves for 
their historical and philosophical depth of thought, and 
much sound reasoning. 

Concurrent with the above literary activity, Gorres' 
uncommon political talent, his vigorous and powerful elo- 
quence, and his determined, persevering character, had 
gained for him also great weight in the clubs. 189 

Ere long, however, Gorres, together with the people of 
the Rhinelands, came to recognize the curse of foreign 
dominion, and amidst tears and repentance, they rose to 
rediscover their lost fatherland. 190 It was in the "Rue- 
bezahl" that Gorres began his onslaught against the new 
regime. The French government threatened to prohibit 
the publication. Gorres answered in the next issue with 
a quotation from Cicero: "Est enim in nobis is animus, 
ut non modo nullius audaciae cedamus, sed etiam omnes 
improbos ultro semper lacessamus". And that which 
Cicero had so pathetically pronounced from the rostrum, 
Gorres carried out in his life to the letter, 191 as the sub- 
sequent pages will show. 

In the autumn of 1799, the Rhinelanders decided to 
send a deputation to Paris to demand the cessation of the 
oppressive occupation of their country. Gorres was 



188 Hor. Od., Lib. II, Od. X, I, 17-18 (Chase-Stuart ed.) ; also 
Schellberg, "Gesammelte Werke," op. cit., I, p. 9. 

189 Cf. Schellberg, ibid., p. XXV f . ; see also ibid., I, p. 16 ff. 
(Speech of Gorres). Cf. also Miiller, Karl Alex, von, "Der junge 
Gorres," "Archiv fiir Kulturgeschichte," Vol. 10, p. 424. 

190 The Rhinelands were by this time entirely in the hands of 
the French, which latter had at first not only been welcomed most 
enthusiastically by Gorres, but also by many of his countrymen, 
as harbingers of "Universal Happiness." Instead of that, followed 
suppression after suppression, so that conditions became, finally, 
intolerable. See: Gebhardt, op. cit., II, p. 379 ff. ; Atkinson, op. 
cit., p. 409 ff. ; Galland, op. cit., p. 63 ff., and von Miiller, op. cit., 
p. 418 f. 

19J Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 59 ff. 



LIFE OF GORRES 97 

chosen the representative of the Rhine — and Moselde- 
partement; hence, was one of the party. 192 They 
arrived in Paris on the 30. Brumaire, year VII (No- 
vember 20, 1799). Here in Paris, Gorres viewed in 
its true light the fruit of the seed planted long ago by a 
Rousseau, a Voltaire, a Helvetius, a Diderot, and other 
encyclopedists, who with their brilliant and fascinating, 
yet false theories of liberty and back to nature, had 
weakened long-cherished truths, mocked virtue, and 
made men restive under any restraint, whether human 
or divine. 

Gorres was utterly disappointed. "Only six days am I 
here and I am already filled to overflowing with disgust 
for this morass overgrown with flowers," he writes to 
his fiancee. 193 No, that was not the realization of 
Gorres' concept of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. 
In a pamphlet entitled "Resultate meiner Sendung nach 
Paris", (Results of my mission to Paris), he gave a full 
account of his mission, and expressed a complete change 
in his political opinions, after he had clearly seen the 
deep abyss in which the Revolution had ended. 194 

The above work constitutes the boundary stone in the 
spiritual, social, and political development of Gorres. 
True, for the time being, Kant is still his ideal represen- 
tative of the German mind; Fichte's Ego, to a certain 
extent, continues to enthrall him, and, for some time at 
least, he remains under the influence of the men of the 
Aufklaerung. But, he had come to realize, and became 
more and more convinced, as time went on, that human 
life is not an ephemeral and superficial, but an immortal 
and central power having its roots in God, and drawing 
from Him its substance and sustenance. Consequently, 



192 In the earlier part of 1809, Gorres, with three others, had 
already been sent to Mainz to demand a redress of grievances. 
Hardly had they left Coblenz, when the French got an inkling of 
their mission, and ordered their arrest and kept them prisoners 
for twenty days. (See Galland, op. cit., p. 63). 

193 Schellberg, op. cit., p. 12 (Letter of Nov. 27, 1799), trans- 
lated. Cf. also Galland, op. cit., pp. 68-72. 

194 See Politische Schriften, op. cit., I, pp. 25-113. 



98 LIFE OF GORRES 

when that source is removed, death and corruption must 
follow. 195 

On his return from Paris, in February, 1800, Gorres 
retired to private life at Coblenz, 190 assuming the chair 
of natural history and science in the secondary school 
(Secundaerschule) 197 of that city, assigned to him by the 
Board of Directors, previous to his departure for Paris. 
His work, "Resultate meiner Sendung nach Paris" of 
May 10, 1800, mentioned above, is called by him, in 
the introduction, his political testament. On Septem- 
ber 14, 1801, he married Katharina de Lassaulx, a high- 
ly intelligent young lady, who proved to him a devoted 
and congenial companion throughout life. 198 

Here in Coblenz, Gorres' predilection for the natural 
sciences and for art asserted itself anew. Consequently, 
every spare moment, that his professional duties left 
him, were utilized in the study of physics, physiology, as- 
tronomy, and medicine, 199 and in the study of art, especi- 
ally that of ancient Greece, and the Italian, in which he 



195 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., II, p. 12 ff. (Letter to Miss Las- 
saulx, of Nov. 27, 1799). 

196 Galland says, for a publicist as fearless, as truth-loving, and 
as free from party-spirit, as was Gorres, it certainly would not 
have been advisable to remain in the field (of politics), where in 
those days only a panegyrist and an adulator, a hireling and a 
government parasite, could find a remunerative soil. (Cf. op. cit., 
p. 84 f.), translated. In his "Aphorismen ueber die Kunst," Gor- 
res says: "Keinem Parteifuehrer mag ich unbedingt huldigen, kein 
neuer Parteifuehrer mag ich werden ; fuer das eine habe ich zu 
vielen Stolz, fuer das andere zu wenig Eitelkeit." (Schellberg, op. 
cit., I, p. 71 f.) However, Gorres surrendered not his faith in the 
Providence of a Higher Power concerning a change for the better 
in freedom's arms. With hopeful gaze into the future, he had writ- 
ten in Ruebezahl: "The morning dawn of the Nineteenth Century 
rises above the distant horizon, perhaps its setting sun will behold 
that which we are but permitted to desire." (Galland, op. cit., 62, 
translated). 

197 Cf. Gorres' "Pelitisches Credo," Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 
35 ff. Its rank was about that of the modern German lyceum. 

108 Cf. Galland, op. cit., pp. 86 and 104 ff. ; also "Historisch- 
Politische Blaetter," No. 32, p. 571 ff. 

199 According to E. von Lassaulx, Gorres even practiced medi- 
cine at this time. His medical opinions are given in the Allge- 
meine Medizinische Annalen von Altenburg," April, 1802. Cf. 
Galland, op. cit., p. 86 f., and "Gorres' Gesammelte Briefe," op. cit.. 
Vol. II, p. 1 f., Letter of July 21, 1802. 



LIFE OF GORRES 99 

had become intensely interested during his sojourn in 
Paris. 200 

With these studies, Gorres evidently combined deep 
philosophical speculations. In a letter of May 4, 1800, 
he writes to Miss Lassaulx, who was then visiting the 
Brentanos in Frankfurt a/M: "The study of nature lets 
us surmise that our intellectual knowledge is, in the first 
place, dependent (gebunden an) on one of the more 
subtle substances in nature, perhaps on light or elec- 
tricity; the body decomposes, these substances are set 
free and become dispersed, but neither substance nor 
matter passes out of existence; the quantity of existing 
things always remains the same. Should it be otherwise 
with our spiritual nature (Geist) ; — should that element 
in us, which alone gives us existence, be doomed to de- 
struction?. .With, .my whole faith (Glaube) I oppose, 
resist, the destruction of my individuality .... No one 
shall rob me of my belief in immortality." 201 

As a result of these studies, there came from the pen 
of Gorres, in 1801, his "Aphorismen ueber die Kunst," 208 
as an introduction towards aphorisms on organology, 
physics, physiology, and anthropology. This work, 
especially, gives testimony of the exceptionally penetrat- 
ing and reflective mind of the author. The culinary art 
he calls here the "Plastic Art of Fluidity" (die Plastik 
des Fluessigen), and the art of making perfumes the 
"Music of Fragrances" (die Musik der Duefte). In con- 
clusion he says, "Life, love, and knowledge", are the 
three threads that constitute the texture into which our 
existence is woven : — organism is life ; art is love ; science 
is knowledge ; the highest act of personality is the act of 
reproduction; death there where these three "Charitin- 
nen" flee from each other's embrace." 203 

Next followed "Fourcroy's Synoptic Table" (1802), a 



200 Rare treasures of art had just then arrived in Paris as 
trophies of Napoleon's Italian campaign. (See Schellberg, op. 
cit., II, p. 17 f. — Letter to Miss Lassaulx Dec. 7, 1799. Read also, 
ibid., I, pp. 107-110: "Die Antiken zu Paris"). 

201 Schellberg, op. cit., II, p. 68 ff. (translated). 

202 Ibid., I, pp. 67-87. 

203 Ibid., I, p. 85 (translated). 



100 LIFE OF GORRES 

translation from the original French edition; "Aphor- 
ismen ueber Organonomie" (1803), 204 and "Exposition 
der Physiologie" (1805). 205 This latter work, according 
to Gorres' own words, and same may be said of all his 
works of this time, was to be but a general sketch of the 
respective topic, to be carried out further by others in 
time to come. 

Meanwhile, Christian von Aretin, the director and 
chief librarian of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, 
had applied to Gorres for contributions to his "Aurora", 
with the result that, beginning with June 13, 1804, there 
appeared in that publication, from the pen of Gorres, 
aphorisms on poetry, philosophy, and politics, under the 
title "Corruscationen", Wetterleuchten, (sheetlighten- 
ing) , and, in 1805, a larger work, "Glauben und Wissen" 
all of which, according to Aretin, 206 were highly appre- 
ciated by the public. 

In examining the foregoing works, we find that as a 
critic of the fine arts, Gorres follows in the footsteps of 
Winckelmann; as to aesthetics he is in sympathy with 
Schiller and Wilhelm von Humboldt, but is more pro- 
found than either of these ; as philosopher of nature, he is 
under the influence of Fichte and Baader, 207 and 
especially under that of Schelling, without, however, fol- 
lowing them into the extremes of pantheism. 208 Spell- 
ing's ideas he fills in with Herder's "Ideen zur Geschi- 
chte der Menschheit". Jean Paul 209 seems to be his ideal 
poet, and Herder, Holderlein and Kleist (in part), Less- 
ing and the two Schlegels, his favorite authors. 



204 Ibid., pp. 89-96. 

205 Ibid., pp. 153-172. (This work is also called "Organologie," 
which led to the erroneous opinion that Gorres had also written 
"Aphorisms on Organology."— See Galland, op. cit., p. 87, note 2). 

206 Cf. "Gesammelte Briefe," op. cit., Vol. II, p. 8 f. (Letter 
of Aretin to Gorres, June 20, 1804). Cf. ibid., Vol. II, p. 4. (Letter 
of Winckelmann to Gorres, June, 1803). 

207 Read Nohl, J., "Franz von Baader, der Philosoph der Ro- 
mantik," Euphorion, Vol. XIX, pp. 612-633. (Gorres calls Baader 
"ein elektrisches Blitzgenie," — ibid., p. 619). 

208 Cf. "Gesammelte Briefe," II, p. 21, Letter of Gorres to 
Windischmann, June 16, 1805. 

209 See Schellberg, op. cit., I, pp. 402-414 (On "The Works of 
Jean Paul," by Gorres). 



LIFE OF GORRES 101 

In 1802, Gorres hal also written "Das Christkind- 
chen", or "Kindermythen", a childlike and sympathetic 
narration relating a little girl's dream about a Christmas 
tree, to which the mother had given the initiative 
by the telling of a Christmas story. Some lines of the pro- 
logue will speak of the character of the composition. It 
begins : 

"Umspiilt vom wilden Strom der Zeiten, liegt 
Romantisch eine Zauberinsel da, 
Ein lieblich stisser Duft halt sie umschwebt, 
Und Engel steigen in den Duft herab, 
Hernieder zu der Unschuld munterm Spiel 
Und zu der Jugend harmlos f rohen Thun. 

****** 

Nur solch ein zart und liebevoll Gemiith, 

Das gern, ein Kind selbst, unter Kindern weilt 

Mag sich vertraulich ihrem Kreise nahn." 210 

Gorres, at this period of his life, was no atheist, and, 
as we have said, no pantheist, but neither was he, as yet, 
an adherent of the Revealed Religion, the faith which 
he had lost in the days of his youth. His religious 
ideas were still vague and indefinite. Faith (Phantasie), 
with him, has its home chiefly in the South, 
and Knowledge (Erkenntniss) in the North. The God 
of the South is a poetical God, the God of the North, a 
God of ideas. He holds, however, since religion is a neces- 
sity of the heart and knowledge a necessity of the mind, 
they, religion and science, are as inseparable as are heart 
and head. The State cannot exist without religion : — there 
must be religion, and that a positive religion; but it is 
not yet clear to him what that religion should be. Chris- 
tianity seems to him, from a speculative, aesthetic stand- 
point, the most perfect religion, but its dogmas are sub- 
ject, as yet, to his own wilful interpretation. A decisive 
improvement in his religious ideas is noticeable in his 



210 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit. f I, p. 95 ff.; also Galland, op. cit., p. 
295 ff. 



102 LIFE OF GORRES 

work "Glauben und Wissen". Here he refers all later reli- 
gious viewpoints back to the First Principle (das Erste, 
Ursprungliche) , whence all things have proceeded; 
points out most intelligently the characteristics of 
Heathenism and Christianity, and defends the Christian 
idea of a God, who is a Personal Transcendental Being, 
against the materialistic-pantheistic ideas of Paganism. 
The sphere of mysticism (divine) is the sphere of grace; 
the sphere of art and science, the sphere of genius. Rea- 
son can comprehend the Divine only as the "Absolute", 
whereas faith, religion, and myth, comprehend and en- 
joy the Divine as "Personality". 211 

Noteworthy, also, in these works is the attitude 
which Gorres begins to take against the philosophers and 
advocates of the Enlightenment. Even, already, in his 
"Arphorismen liber die Kunst", he upbraids them for the 
spiritless and cold haughtiness with which they ignore 
even the grandest products of genius, while lavishly be- 
stowing their praises on the stunted (verbutteten) pro- 
ducts of a meager and conceited fancy ; rebukes them for 
their blindness towards all that is not tangible, not ma- 
terial. His keen eye sees the lose construction of the doc- 
trines that constitute "Modernism" : — the latter's conf us- 
edness, its cutting contrasts, its strange dislocations, its 
destructive effect on all that is noble and good. "The 
serenity of former generations", he says, "has fled; — an 
impulsive effusion of force, a fierce confrontment of op- 
posite tendencies, characterizes the age ; force after force 
usurps the throne, to succumb in turn before the reaction 
of all the other forces; — all is chaos, convulsion, up- 
roar." aia 



211 Of interest in regard to the works under question is a 
criticism directed against Uhlmann, which is found in "Histo- 
risches Jahrbuch", 1914, 35. Band, 3. Heft. Cf. also Galland, op. 
cit., p. 209 ff. 

212 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 68 ff. ; also "Antic und Modern," 
ibid., I, p. 98 ff. ; "Die Herabkunft der Ideen und das Zeitalter," 
ibid., I, p. 116 ff. ; Galland, op. cit., p. 300 ff. In reference to Gor- 
res' works in general, of the period concerned, see "Historisch- 
politische Blaetter," Vol. 32, p. 672 ff., and Schultz, "Franz Joseph 
Gorres als Herausgeber, Litterarhistoriker, und Kritiker im Zu- 
sammenhang mit der juengeren Roraantik," Berlin, 1002 pp. 1-46. 



LIFE OF GORRES 103 

Meanwhile, matters had not improved in the Rhine- 
lands, but had reached such a stage that Gorres thought 
he could no longer endure it so near to the "French In- 
ferno", 213 and he resolved to emigrate. He applied first 
at Munich for a professorship 214 and then at Heidelberg, 
and Heidelberg was indeed glad to receive a man into 
her faculty whom Thibaut called "einen ausgezeigneten 
Gelehrten". 215 

In the autumn of 1806, Gorres took up his abode in 
Heidelberg and for the next two years lectured at the 
University on philosophy, physiology, anthropology, on 
physics, aesthetics, poetry, and on old German literature. 

We shall, however, not touch here on Gorres' activity 
in Heidelberg, since we have done so already in Chapter 
VI, but will follow him instead to Coblenz, where, after 
his return from Heidelberg, he reassumed the professor- 
ship, which had been left open for him during his ab- 
sence. 

But, although Gorres* academic life at Heidelberg had 
become a matter of the past it was, happily, not so in re- 
gard to the intellectual activity which he had unfolded 
here under the auspices of the Romantic Movement. 
He continued to give attention to folk-songs, 216 as well 
as to Minne-and Master-songs. In these songs he saw 
hidden, and rightly so, the real motives which 



213 Cf. "Gesammelte Briefe," Vol. II, p.* 12 f. (Letter to Aretin, 
Feb. 3, 1805). 

214 Cf. Ibid., p. 18 f. (Letter to Aretin, May 4, 1805) ; cf. also, 
ibid., p. 17 (Letter of Aretin to Gorres, April 15, 1805). 

215 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 97 f. 

216 Rueckert characterizes the folk-song thus beautifully: 

"Das Schoenste ward gedichtet 

Von keines Dichters Mund; 
Kein Denkmal ist errichtet 

Kein Marmor thut es kund. 
Es hat sich selbst geboren, 

Wie eine Blume spriesst 
Und wie aus Felsenthoren 

Ein Brunnquell sich ergiesst." 

(From Keller, J .,"Bilder aus der deutschen Literatur," New York, 
1905, P. 50). 



104 LIFE OF GORRES 

inspire people in their dealings with the various 
problems of life. He thus became more and more en- 
lightened as to the true nature and character of the life 
of the people in the Middle Ages, which age the German 
people, together with the rest of the world, had become 
accustomed to despise as a period of mental darkness 
and barbarism. And beautiful, indeed, is the perspec- 
tive which one obtains of the Christian German Middle 
Age, as it stands forth in its glorious ballad poetry in 
testimony of its love for the chivalrous and ideal. 
Gorres realized more than any other of the Romanticists 
that a truly enlightened advancement must be guided by 
the motto, "Vetera novis augere et perficere" — "to ren- 
der the old new and to perfect it." 217 

Another field of intellectual labor, besides the forego- 
ing, had attracted the attention of Gorres during his so- 
journ in Heidelberg. Breathlessly he had listened, with 
Creuzer, to Friedrich Schlegel's celebrated work, 
"Sprache und Weisheit der Inder" (1808) . A new world 
of thought expanded before the ardent mind of Gorres, as 
the curtain of time was swept away, and he beheld the 
domain of history in the primeval times of the East. 
Here, in the primitive relations, he hoped to find the 
fountain-head of all traditions, of all philosophy, of all 
religion, of all sagas. 215 With but limited material at his 
disposal and with almost no assistance, he set to work to 
unravel for us the mental and physical intricacies of the 
far distant and hidden past, to the effect, that the year 



217 Cf. Turner, op. cit, p. 66o. 

218 The existence of a primeval revelation and the diffusion 
and perpetuity of its doctrines among all the nations of the world, 
has been very ably proved by Abbe de la Mennais in his "Essai 
sur L' Indifference en Matiere de Religion," Paris. 1823, 4 vols. 
Consult also Stolberg, Fr., "Geschichte der Religion Jesu Christi," 
1806-1811. 



LIFE OF GORRES 105 

1810 saw the publication of his "Mythengeschichte der 
asiatischen Welt", in two volumes. 219 

The object of the "Mythengeschichte," according to the 
author himself, was to interpret the first page of the 
great book of Nature, which God Himself has written 
with His own Finger on tablets of stone as a glorious 
panegyric of His omnipotence, expressed in most vivid 
symbols. He starts out with the belief that there is 
ONENESS in the fundamental mythical thoughts of all 
peoples. Far off in the misty haze of remote antiquity, 
Gorres' eye beholds the Godhead stepping forth from His 
eternal mysteries to reveal Himself, first of all in matter 
and in the visible universe. Then the first great dawn of 
day steals away from the darkness and, like the dusk of 
evening, weaves its shadows deep and solemn. Silence 
of death broods over all, which the breath of creative 
power alone can remove. But lo! lovingly the Eye of 
Fire (das Feuerauge) looks down from heaven; — the 
earth becomes intoxicated, as it were, from the effect of 
the golden light which it absorbed from that intensive 
"Cast of Eye", yielding unto it the vital germ, and, in 
response, sends forth, in anthems of Thanksgiving, liv- 
ing forms of every kind. Lastly man appears, and to 
him are given the hieroglyphs of the first revelations in 
characters too clear and luminous to remain unperceived. 

In the next stage of her existence, Nature opens her 



219 The work was greeted with enthusiasm by the literary- 
world. Not that it is free of errors ; — from a scientific as well as 
from a dogmatic standpoint, these are many, for, first of all, Gor- 
res never means to do really thorough research work, — he leaves 
that to others : he delights in playing the part of an initiator^ an 
inspirer ; and secondly, we still have the Christian in the making, 
not in the completion, — a seeker after truth, not the possessor of 
it; yet no one will deny that it is a great work. Creuzer, to 
whom it is dictated, says : — "recht durchgenossen (hinterlaesst 

das Werk) eine Sehnsucht nach der alten Mitte und nach der 

ersten Quelle alles Guten und Goettlichen, das sich je unter den 
Menschenkindern offenbart hat." — ("Gesammelte Briefe," Vol. II, 
p. 155, Letter of Creuzer, Nov. 10, 1810). Professor Sepp says, 
that its merit consists in having proclaimed the existence of an 
original relationship between the history of ideas and that of the 
dispersion of mankind, which reflection gave the impetus for a 
new history of religion, whose future development will devolve 
upon General Ethnography, and the History of Art and Aesthetics 
(Bildungsgeschichte).— Galland, op. cit., p. 138. 



106 LIFE OF g0RRES 

gates, and forth steps, from her inner sanctuary, a 
procession of priests and prophets, accompanied by 
poets, heroes, and wise men. They were to receive testi- 
mony and give testimony of the mysterious words that 
God has spoken to His creatures, and to explain what 
was still obscure. 

The first type of religion was pure and simple, with- 
out temples. The concrete world of gods came later and 
produced the heathen polytheism. The latter found its 
concentration in the cult of Jehovah, which reached its 
highest development in the Christian doctrine of the 
Holy Trinity. In the descent there is the Anti-Christian 
Mohammedanism, followed by the Modern Paganism of 
Poetry and Art, which latter was to find its culmination 
in the Idealistic Pantheism of his (Gorres') own day. 

The myths correspond, in elevation and kind, to the 
climate in which they are born. The tall palms, the soft, 
dark-green spruce, the rainbow-colored flowers, the 
snow-capped Alps, the long polar night, give expression 
to the thought, to the desires of the heart, — each in its 
own peculiar language. But, at the bottom of all, there 
is one central idea, which rules and contains all. "One 
Godhead only," he says, "is active in the universe; also 
only one religion rules within, one service and one view- 
point of the world at the root of all, one Law and one 
Bible everywhere, but a living book it is, increasing like 
the generations, and like the species ever young". 220 

These are some of the thoughts which Gorres has laid 
down in his "History of Mythology". After its publica- 
tion he found himself more than ever persecuted by Voss 
and his clique, as well as by the Weimarians. But these 



220 "Eine Gottheit nur wirkt im ganzen Weltall, eine Religion 
auch nur herrscht in ihm, ein Dienst und eine Weltanschauung in 
der Wurzel, ein Gestz und eine Bibel geht durch alle, aber ein le- 
bendiges Buch wachsend wie die Geschlechter und wie die Gat- 
tung ewig jung." Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. LXVII. See also, ibid., 
I. PP- 387-400 (Ausklang der Mythengeschichte) ; Galland, op. cit., 
pp. 137 f. and p. 303; "Gesammelte Brief e," II, pp. 144-155. (Letter 
of Creuzer, Nov. io, 1810, — criticisms on the work). 



LIFE OF GORRES 107 

forces could not disturb the balance of his noble soul, 221 
nor could they harm him. The worthiest representatives 
in the scientific world stood in communication with him 
and sought his counsel, and periodicals of every type 
were awaiting articles from his pen. Von Aretin sought 
such for his "Aurora", Gehlen for his "Neue Allgemeine 
Journal der Chemie", Dr. Julius and F. R. Perthes for 
"Das Vaterlandische Museum", Wilken and Zimmer for 
the "Musen", F. Schlegel for "Das Deutsche Museum," 
etc. 

Besides the above named personages, Gorres counted 
Bohmer, Winckelmann, Dalberg, Von Lassberg, and 
Windischmann among his friends. Of great importance, 
from a literary standpoint, is the correspondence that 
he kept up in connection with his scientific pursuits. 
In behalf of the natural sciences he exchanged ideas with 
Winckelmann, Aretin, Molitor, and Gehlen; in behalf of 
Oriental poetry and legends with von Dalberg, Windisch- 
mann, F. Schlegel, and especially with Creuzer. This 
was followed by a correspondence with Jean Paul, 
Arnim, Brentano, Perthes, and the Brothers Grimm. 
Galland says of these letters that they afford the best 
and most interesting account of the early history of the 
Germanistic Movement. 222 They also contain a large 
amount of biographical material. 

Meanwhile, Gorres had been studying the Persian 
language, which he not only mastered in the short space 
of two years, but had also read and studied the famous 
epic of Firdusi, the "Shah-Nameh." 223 

In 1810, he had also written his "uber den Fall 
Teutschlands und die Bedingungen seiner Wiederge- 



221 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. 386 — here Gorres says : "Das ist 
meines Lebens schonster Stern von je gewesen, dass die Besseren 
sich vertrauend immer urn mich her gesammelt, wie auch ich nur 
zu den Guten mich gehalten ; die aber mich zu hassen die Miihe 
sich genommen, haben keine Krankung mir bereitet, weil ich leicht 
ihr nichtiges, verworrenes Streben bis zum Grunde durchgesehen, 
das immer zuletzt sich selber aufgerieben." — (Vorrede zur My- 
thengeschichte). 

222 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 143. See Schellberg, op. cit., II, pp. 
75-210 and "Gesammelte Briefe," Vols. 2 and 3. Consult also Sepp, 
J. N., "Gorres und seine Zeitgenossen," Nordlingen, 1867. 

223 Cf. Sepp, Gorres, op. cit., p. in f. 



108 LIFE OF GORRES 

burt" and "Fall der Religion und ihre Wiedergeburt", 224 
both of which titles speak for themselves as to the char- 
acter of these works. They are of special interest, since 
they reveal a further improvement in the religious 
opinions of our friend. 

The year 1813 was marked by his "Lohengrin" and his 
"Hunibald's Chronik" : 225 In the introduction to the form- 
er he endeavors to prove the kinship of the German and 
the Gaelic legends, and holds that the poem affords a 
deep insight into the domestic and public life of the times 
in which the theme is laid, and that not only civism, but 
also the knightly element, has grown out of the national 
life. 226 

It is with utter amazement that we look up to the in- 
tellectual activity of Gorres. Besides the foregoing en- 
deavors, we find him accompany, with kind and intelli- 
gent interest, the first flights of the attempt made by the 
Brothers Grimm, to give German philology the charac- 
ter of an independent science. In 1812, he planned with 
Glockle the "Bibliotheka Vaticana" of ancient German 
poetry. 227 He gave his faithful help to the Brothers 



224 "Politische Schriften," I, pp. 115-132, and 132-189. 

225 See Schlegel, F., "Deutsches Museum, 1813," Vol. Ill, pp. 
319-345, 503-516; Vol. IV, 321-349, 358-375 (Hunibald's Chronic). 

226 Gorres believed that the legend of the Holy Grail had its 
origin in the Orient and that it was introduced into the Western 
World by way of Byzantium (Constantinople), since he thought 
to have re-discovered the essentials of the "Hagia Sophia" in the 
inscription of the Temple of the "Holy Grail" in the Titurel, which 
latter he considered to be the center and crown of all ancient 
German poetry. Consult Rosenkranz, "tleber den Titurel und Dan- 
te's Komodia," Halle und Leipzig, 1839; Borchling, "Der jiingere 
Titurel und sein Verhaltnis zu Wolfram von Eschenbach," Got- 
tingen, 1897. Borchling holds that the interpretation of names by 
Gorres from the Arabic is untenable. See also Schultz, op. cit., p. 
178. Schultz credits Gorres with the fact that his Lohengrin has 
broken the ground of the view-point, first established by Grimm, 
that the idea of the Holy Grail has a national basis and that it is 
found as a "principle of desire" (Wunschding) among all nations. 
Cf. also Sepp, op. cit.. p. 109 ff. To Gorres certainly belongs the 
credit of having introduced into Germany, through his Lohengrin, 
the legend of the Holy Grail, which has since become the property 
of the educated classes through Simrock and San Marte in litera- 
ture, through Wagner in music, and through Steinle and others 
in art. 

227 Cf. Grauert, H., Deutschnationale Regungen in Siiddeutsch- 
land wahrend der Jahre 1812-1813," Kempen und Mtinchen, 1913, 
p. 366. 



LIFE OF GORRES 109 

Boisseree to save what was yet to be saved of ancient 
art out of the Vandalic ravage brought about by the hard 
utilitarianism of the Frenchified bureaucracy of the 
"Confederation of the Rhine", which salvage now forms 
those precious collections which render Munich and 
Cologne so famous. He lent his interest and assistance 
to the great Cornelius, who, with others, was making the 
first attempts towards the unshackling of art from the 
chains of mannerism and materialistic insipidity. 228 

While Gorres was thus engaged, great changes had 
taken place in France and elsewhere. The unlimited 
despotism of Bonaparte, engendered by the absolutism 
and godlessness of the Revolution, was not the tyranny 
of mere brute force, as it reveals itself in the barbarian, 
but a despotism begotten by modern civilization, whose 
true character would be more correctly signified if 
its era be called "Age of Enlightened Egotism" instead 
of, as it is called, "Age of Universal Enlightenment". 
Napoleon made the forces of the Revolution subserve his 
will and his insatiable ambition, and with them conquer- 
ed the degenerate nations of Europe. For years "the 
Mighty Hunter of Nations", as Gorres calls Napoleon, 
had chained victory to his triumphal car and driven 
through the fields of Europe, — of Europe which had 
grown wild with the principles of Rationalism, Material- 
ism, Atheism, and false Enlightenment. But when the 
nations recovered their senses, when they awakened 
from the torpor of mind and soul that had come to en- 
thrall them, then it was for Napoleon to dig with his 
own hands the pit that was to receive him in his fall 
from the elevated station into which his pride and lust 
had carried him, after he had so ingloriously missed the 
rare opportunities that were his. History tells how on 
the snowfields of Russia his Grand Armee was destroyed 
by the elements, whilst the victories of Albuera and Sala- 
manca and the Flames of Moscow were flashing across 
the continent the hope of deliverance. 



228 Cf. Sepp, "Gorres," op. cit., p. 112 ff. Read "Gesammelte 
Briefe," II, pp. 433-440 — (Letter of Cornelius to Gorres, Rome, 
Nov. 3, 1814). 



110 LIFE OF GORRES 

With the dawn of 1813, there came the twilight 
of a better day. In answer to the summons of the iron 
York, "Nunc aut nunquam", the nations arose, above all 
Germany, — Germany which (with the exception of 
Prussia) had been most enslaved and most dishonored, 
because she had betrayed and sold herself. From all 
parts of Germany recruits were hurrying to the front, 
with the one resolve to liberate their country from the 
oppression it had borne so long. On the battlefield of 
Leipzig, the power of the arrogant usurper was over- 
thrown, and he was driven by the allied armies across the 
Rhine back to his capital, where on the walls of the Tui- 
leries were written his "Mane", "Thecel", "Phares". 

No one, perhaps, of the sons of "Germania" had 
watched the foregoing events with keener interest than 
Gorres. More than ever he felt himself called to be the 
teacher of his nation, and like St. Paul of old, he was not 
satisfied to be such from his Cathedra alone. Seeing the 
time favorable for action, he once more returned from 
retirement to the publicist activity of his youth. And, 
like a prophet inspired by the "Higher Power", he gave 
in his Rhenish Mercury (Der Rheinische Merkur) ex- 
pression of the wishes and demands of the people, while 
at the same time instructing them as to the things that 
had been or ought to be done. 229 

With the same force, as he had years before announced 
the saving truths of the Revolution, Gorres carried on, 
in above journal, an unrelenting war of the pen against 
French dominion and despotism and in behalf of the new 
Germanism that was awakening everywhere. 230 He 
seemed to have caught from the heart of Christ some of 
the Savior's undying love of humanity, of justice, of 
liberty, of truth, of simplicity, — of all that is great and 
good in man and in a people. Outside power raged in 
vain against the rock-like and splendid principles that he 



229 Consult "Politische Schriften," Der Rheinische Merkur," 
Vol. I, pp. 191-475; Vol. II, pp. 1-504; Vol. Ill, pp. 1-373- (The first 
number of this journal appeared on Sunday, January 23, 1814). 

230 Cf. Sepp, Gorres, op. cit., p. 71 f • ; Menzel, op. cit., p. 31 f. 
and 80 f. ; Bobeth, J., "Die Zeitschriften der Romantik," Leipzig 

1911 (Preisschrift der Kunst-Stiftung), p 256 ff. 



LIFE OF GORRES 111 

had built up from past experience, and which his vast 
learning, his profound understanding, and keen vision 
had helped him to assimilate, and correlate correctly, 
while his fearlessness of character gave him strength to 
express them. He had learned to know the difference 
between the spirit of God and the thorny hedge which a 
false, degenerate philosophy had built up. He, there- 
fore, told his people, that it was not enough for them to 
crush the Napoleonic tyranny, but that it was also, and 
really above all, necessary to renovate their country by a 
new infusion of Christian and truly national principles. 
For, as Chadwick in our own days, 231 so saw Gorres in 
Christ the channel through which alone can come to a 
people that which it needs most, namely, "righteous- 
ness" : — Righteous thinking, righteous living, righteous 
acting heaven alone supplies. Unsparingly, with biting 
truth, therefore, he describes the sins which had led to 
the destruction of the old empire, placing on the tongue 
of Napoleon these words: "A people without a father- 
land, a constitution without unity, princes without char- 
acter or aims, a nobility without pride and energy, all 
this must be an easy booty for me." 232 

And the people listened, and the rulers trembled, as 
Gorres poured forth his "flammantia verba" and "saeva 
indignatio" against all that was evil in them. Truth, 
Liberty, and Right, these all-embracing gifts, said 
Gorres, God showered upon mankind in sending the Re- 
deemer, and it is the duty of man to acquire them, and 
when obtained, to keep them intact. These constitute 
the true happiness of a people: outside of these is 
tyranny, oppression, and despotism. 

Meanwhile, the Allies had entered Paris and the diplo- 
mats were engaged in making a treaty of peace and lay- 



231 Cf. Chadwrck, W. E., "Social Relationships in the Light of 
Christianity," New York, 1910, p. 201. 

232 Sepp, Gorres, op. cit., p. 80. Read entire "Napoleon's Proc- 
lamation to the People of Europe previous to his Departure for 
Elba," Schellberg, op. cit., I, pp. 533-562; "Politische Schriften," 
Vol. I, pp. 379-409- See also, Uhlmann, J. von, "Gorres und die 
deutsche Einheits — und Verfassungsfrage bis zum Jahr 1824," 
Leipzig, 1912. 



112 LIFE OF GORRES 

ing the foundation of the new order of things that need- 
ed to be established in Europe. Gorres was on the alert. 
He knew full well that diplomatic art and wisdom had 
yet seldom produced a lasting good. A rumor went 
about that France was even to be rewarded with new 
concessions of land, while Germany, that had gone to so 
many sacrifices, was to remain cut up and parceled out. 
The first Peace of Paris was signed May 30, 1814, and 
when the terms were made public, Gorres found the 
above rumors only too well verified. 233 He was indig- 
nant, but since it was too late to amend matters, he kept 
aloof from useless lamentations and contented himself 
with turning his attention to the regulations of interior 
affairs. 

Gorres, first of all, demanded of the German peo- 
ple that they should complete the Cathedral of Cologne 
as a memorial of the restitution of the fatherland. 234 In 
Christian art, Gorres saw a symbol of the heavenly, of 
the mysterious, — the sublime. The majestic cathedral 
was, therefore, once more to become the channel of the 
enthusiasm of Christendom and the purest expression of 
religious feeling, — of that deep and all-pervading senti- 
ment of the human soul which struggles with a holy and 
yearning enthusiasm to mount up to the throne of the 
Most High. And what may be said of every Gothic 
cathedral, is especially true of the one under question, 
namely, that no other structure is so admirably calcu- 
lated to produce sensations of blended awe and tran- 
quility, by its impressive atmosphere of the solemn and 
entrancing beauty of the All-Holy. In the neglected, 
unfinished cathedral, Gorres saw a picture of Germany 
in her confusion of speech and thought, and he now 
asked his people to let it become, in its completion, 
a symbol of the new and better realm, which they were 
about to establish. 235 



233 Consult "Politische Schriften," I, pp. 448-454— "Der Frieden 
von Paris." 

234 See ibid., II, pp. 194-197 — "Der Dom in Koeln." 

235 Cf. Politische Schriften," II, pp. 194-197. 



LIFE OF GORRES 113 

Gorres also raised his voice again, and again, in de- 
fence of the Catholic Church. When he began to study 
more closely the dogmas and the history of Christianity, 
as he did under the auspices of the Romantic movement, 
he learned to appreciate her more and more, and grew 
less and less confident in the philosophy, which had cap- 
tivated him in his youth. It was truth that he sought, 
and the force and clearness of his penetrating genius 
helped him also to find it, 236 if not at once, then gradually. 

On September 20, 1814, the Congress of Vienna was 
opened. Gorres demanded that a government be found- 
ed based on the love of Divine Justice and the principles 
of self-devotion, i. e., on the Christian theory of law and 
government, whereby the rights of princes and of the 
nobility should be connected, in an enduring relation- 
ship, with the liberties of the people. 237 

Towards the end of February, 1815, the work of 
the Congress seemed to be accomplished, and all eyes 
were turned towards Vienna to learn the results of the 
negotiations, when suddenly the news reached the assem- 
bled potentates that Napoleon had escaped from Elba 
and was marching on to Paris. Gorres raised his voice 
anew in defence against the usurper in a series of 
articles. 238 Napoleon was forced a second time to abdi- 
cate; a second Peace of Paris was signed, November 20, 
1815; the Congress of Vienna, which has been called 
"The triumph of Talleyrand's diplomacy", 239 was con- 
tinued and closed, with England and Russia as dicta- 
tors, — without that the hopes of Gorres, and thus those 
of the German people, were fulfilled ; hardly was the re- 
stitution of the robbed treasures of art and science in- 
sisted on. Gorres gave vent to his feelings of utter dis- 
appointment, and warningly he said : "The first Peace of 



236 Cf, ibid., I, p. IX f. See ibid., articles : Die eingedrurigenen 
Bishoefe, I, pp. 266-282; Staats und Kirchengut, ibid., I, pp. 416- 
425; Ueber Pius VII, ibid., II, pp. 56-60. 

237 Cf. "Politische Schriften," II, pp. 93-111 — "Die kuenftige 
teutsche Verfassmig," and, ibid., II, pp. 143-147 — "Der teutsche 
Reichstag." 

238 Cf. ibid., II, pp. 460-505, and III, pp. 1-154. 

239 Reich, op. cit., p. 81. 



114 LIFE OF GORRES 

Paris bore, as son. a new war; the latter has brought 
forth as grandson a new peace, while the great-grandson 
is visibly stretching *forth his tiny snake-head into the 
light of day.*- 

:he same time Gorres kept on attacking with vigor 
the egotism and meanness of selfish politics wherever 
they existed. On this account, of course, he could not 
avoid coming into collision with both statesmen and gov- 
ernments. Already, in the smester of its existence, 
the Mercury had been prohibited by Bavaria, and Wuert- 
emberg and Baden followed soon, while it enjoyed the 
royal favor of Prussia. But when Gorres also attacked 
the latter in his article: "Die Reaction in Preussen' 
the Mercury of the Rhine had spoken its doom ; — it was 
suppressed by a cabinet order of Berlin, dated January 
2. 1816, upon a request of Russia.-- "High thinking and 
right loving*', says a writer, "may make us enemies of 
those around us. but they make us Godlike nevertheless." 
And so it was with Gorres : — he loved his people with the 
truest love, and entertained for them but the highest am- 
bition. — and Godlike, indeed, he stands forth in the 
pages of his Mercury 

Soon after the suppression of this journal. Gorres 
lost his position as director of public instruction, to 
which office he had been appointed by Justus Gruner, 
governor of the middle provinces of the Rhine. April 23. 
1914 



240 Cf. TolH c III. p. 247. Article: "Die 1 

Oct: :_ 

__ Ibid.. III. pp. 310-349 (The last number of the Merctu 
peared on January 10. i v 

242 Cf. Galland, op. cit.. p 

243 For corr. garding the suppression of the Mercury 
inte-Foi, La e Par G :^tion from the 

not a v. lation, however"*. Paris, 

re face of translator): Schellberg, op. cit.. I. p. 

Ill ff.. and p. LXXX (Einlc Thailand, op. cit.. p. 103 ff. 

rch. O.. "Joseph J .er Rhe Merkur 

und der Pi -:aat. Preussische Jahrbuecher," V 

225-24! s the founder of the 

. - — 5 rhellberg, Gorres, op. cit., p. 19). 

244 Res. . "Joseph Gorres und dre Anfaenge der 
Preussischen Yolk- am Rh-_ [814-1816,— Stadicn zur 
Rheinischen Geschi: U ' Heft. 



LIFE OF GORRES 115 

For a third time Gdrres betook himself to the quiet of 
his study. After a vacation of nine weeks, which he 
spent at Heidelberg, he returned to Coblenz, where he 
founded a relief society during the famine that had en- 
sued, and thus made himself, also on that side, the 
benefactor of the Rhinelands. 245 

In 1817 Gorres published his collection of "Old Folk — 
and Master-Songs." 246 In its introduction he says, 
"Since a great catastrophe has awakened the time from 
its egotism and self -adoration, it turns, for the purpose 
of establishing a better future, more and more towards 
the past where it hopes to recover its Better Self. But 
nowhere is this better self more adequately expressed 
than in lyric poetry* which, so to say, holds contained 
within itself the pulsation and breath of the inner life 
of a people; and as a lightbearer (Lichttraeger) radiates 
in the night the light which is absorbed during the 
day, so does this poetry absorb and transmit the char- 
acteristics of every age." Wherever the character of the 
German tribes, wherever the free, heroic energy of the 
Germanic nature, became blended with Christian prin- 
ciples, there came forth from that union those great and 
noble characters of chivalry, that beautiful poetry of 
life, of noble aims and endeavors, which we so much ad- 
mire in true chivalry, and which to restore once more 
amongst his people had become the desire and life-aim 
of Gorres. 

What Gorres aimed to bring out, through the above 
publication, was the essential dignity of common things, 
the glorification of the common life, and the im- 
portance of the individual. The folk-songs, on their 
side, have for their prime characteristics naive, sponta- 
neous, simple beauty. They are products not of calcula- 



245 Cf. Galland, op. cit., pp, 197-207; Allgemeine Deutsche Bio- 
graphie," Leipzig, 1871, Vol. 9, p. 382; "Gesammelte Brief e," II, pp. 
529-531, 533-535, 536-537; 540, 54i; Schellberg, op. cit., II, p. 766— 
Letter of Savigny to Gorres, Berlin, June 21, 1817. 

246 Consult Gorres, J., "Alte Volks-und Meisterlieder aus den 
Handschriften der Heidelberger Bibliothek," Frankfurt a/M., 1817. 



116 LIFE OF GORRES 

tion or scientific intelligence, but of the original, natural, 
creative power of men, as Rueckert expresses it so beau- 
tifully in the stanza; previously quoted ; — the sense of 
beauty, of the ideal, being the determining factor. 

The importance of the individual, on the other hand, 
was at no time more ad worked out to prac- 

tical re rough the Medieval guild-life, as 

pictured in the Meiste: . All the privileges were 

not e class and all the labor for the other. Master 

and man. c : and laborer, knelt side by side at the 

altar to receive the Master of both, true to the spirit of 
Christ who said in the persons of His Apostles to eve 
one of mankind. "I will no longer call you servants, 
frie: Class distinction existed, indeed, but only 

for the happiness and protection and mutual helpfulr. 
of all concerned. 

re a mighty stream, then, these songs were to flood 
once more, with noble from a nobler 

9Come dry and 

:journ in Heidelbe 
found there, in y, some very remarkable frag- 

menl N slungen. These also were publishe d 

A further production of the activity of Gorres about 
this time was the "Adresse der Stadt and Landscl 
Coblenz," October 13. IS 17. und "ihre L'bergabe beim 
Fursten Hardenberg", January 24, 1S1?.-' — a demand 
for redress of grievances. By it. however, he gave g: 
offence to the government, and still more so by his in- 
vective "Kotzebue und was ihn gemordet." : - : In March 
1819, Karl Sand, a Jena student of theologv r ted 

in Mannheim, the German author and dramatist Kotze- 
bue, because of his publishing derisive attacks upon the 



- - 

Einleitung to the 
p. 209 f. 

-^1-240; 
en Har. "ibelun- 

gen." Frankfurt. li 

IV. pp 



LIFE OF CORRES 117 

"Liberals" (Liberalen) and of being suspected as a 
Russian spy for the purpose of furthering principles of 
absolute government. 252 

Gorres had hoped that the Kotzebue affair would turn 
the eyes of the governments in the right direction. Yet, 
this was not the case, as history tells in connection with 
the "Carlsbad Resolutions." 253 It was then that Gorres 
wrote, within four weeks, his "Teutschland und die Re- 
volution." 254 With bold frankness, he unfolds the cor- 
ruption and godlessness of the age ; speaks of the errors 
that had been committed by, and since, the Congress of 
Vienna ; of the shock that was given to public confidence 
when one solemn promise after another was broken or 
left unfulfilled on part of the various governments; de- 
mands the discarding of that cabinet-despotism that had 
been transplanted into Germany from abroad (from 
Italy through France) ; makes suggestions as to how or- 
der can be restored and the demands of the people be 
satisfied; advocates again, as he had done in the "Mer- 
cury," the principle which ruled Church and State dur- 
ing the best period of the Middle Ages, whereby the two 
institutions were in friendly relations with each other, 
each independent in its own sphere, but protecting and 
helping one another in promoting the honor and glory of 
God and the temporal and eternal welfare of the people ; 
and since he held, and that with many, and the best men 
of the time, that this principle could only be placed on a 
solid foundation by a re-establishment of the old Empire, 
he urged this to be done.; however, based on modern (pro- 
gressive) ideas. He ends the work in the pithy verse 
from Virgil: "Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere 
divos" (Aen. VI, 620). 



252 Gorres is accused of having justified the act of Sand. In 
the above article, however, he condemns the deed (p. 53 f.) All 
he says in favor of the assasinator is that the young man, after 
he had committed the deed, handed himself over to the court of 
justice ; but whether this expiates the crime or not, is for God to 
judge, and not for man (p. 59 f.) 

253 Cf. Gebhardt, op. cit., II, p. 504 ff. ; also Galland, op. cit., pp. 
227-231. 

254 "Politische Schriften," IV, pp. 65-245. 



118 LIFE OF GORRES 

The foregoing work incurred for Gorres the hatred of 
the governments more than ever, and he escaped im- 
prisonment at Spandau, only, because of the timely warn- 
ing of a friend, by flight to Frankfurt A/M, where he ar- 
rived on October 1, 1819. From there he made his way 
to Strassburg, leaving Frankfurt on October 7th, and 
reaching his destination on October 10th, of the same 
year. 255 

Here in exile, Gorres took a retrospect, — deeper and 
calmer and more comprehensive than ever before. In 
scanning the years of his life gone by, he saw, as in a 
vision, how he had been carried away in his youth by the 
spirit of the times, and then, as a Stormer and Stresser, 
by that of the French Revolution; he saw destroyed, 
almost completely, the Faith that, in its simplicity, had 
rendered the days of his childhood so golden ; he saw his 
youthful patriotic hopes and ideals one after another 
baffled, his faith in the saving virtue of Democracy 
shipwrecked; — had come to realize, with Plato, that a 
republican form of government is not necessarily the 
best form, but that one which most adequately serves the 
character of the respective peoples ; he next saw himself 
a romanticist, called to assist in restoring to his country 
freedom, and to his people the glorious inheritance of the 
past from which the Reformation had separated one-half 
of Germany and Rationalism the other half; — 256 he 
saw the liberation of his native land from foreign do- 
minion ; saw the flames of patriotism and of noble ideals 
burn once more brightly in the hearts of the Germans ; — 
he saw the formation of the Holy Alliance, proclaiming 
Christianity as the groundwork of politics and popular 
rights; but this religious enthusiasm of 1813 and 1814, 



255 Friends as well as enemies have criticised the procedure of 
Gorres against the governments in this work. Penhcs holds that 
there would have been no need for him ;o lie in exile, had he not 
shown himself so one-sided, especially against Prussia, and so lit- 
tle informed on matters concerned. — See Galland. op. cit., pp. 254 
and 257 ff. ; Schcllberg, op. cit., p. XCIII ff. ; Steig, P., "Achim von 
Arnim und Jacob una Wilhelm Grimm," Stuttgart und Berlin, 
1904, pp. 428 and 453; also Tschirch, op. cit., p. 243. 

256 Cf. Schcllberg, I, op. cit., p. 275 ff. (Religion in der Geschi- 
chtei. 



LIFE OF GORRES 119 

not resting on a solid basis of Faith, being rather a vague 
feeling than a conviction, soon cooled off, and despite the 
Christian principles of the Holy Alliance, Religion and 
Church remained in the oppressed and debased condi- 
tions in which Gallicanism, Josephinism, Rationalism, 
and Napoleonism had placed them. 

Next Gorres saw himself expecting the re-establish- 
ment of the Empire on sound, liberal, and benign prin- 
ciples, and with it the awakening of a "New and Better 
Age", together with all that which makes a people a 
happy and a great nation. Instead of this came the Con- 
gress of Vienna and Metternich's standpoint for a Ger- 
manic Confederation and a staunch endeavor to prevent 
the spread of the constitutional system in Europe. In 
vain had Gorres given vent to his disappointments in his 
Mercury ; in vain had he pleaded, warned, threatened ; in 
vain had he shown the statesmen, especially Metternich, 
their "Nemesis" on the walls of the time in his eloquent 
pamphlet "Teutschland" und die Revolution". He was 
made to flee and live in exile. "Aber," says he, "sie 
sollen einmal erfahren was ein Mann vermag, der auf 
dem Rechte und der Wahrheit steht und sich nicht er- 
schrecken lasst." 257 It was difficult for Gorres to see that 
he should have failed. He had but taken liberty of ex- 
pressing that which he had felt to be the truth ; and 
truth without the freedom of expressing it, was to him 
as a buried treasure, a spring shut up, a fountain 
closed. 258 

Gorres did not remain idle in Strassburg. Besides 
completing and publishing a translation of Firdusi's 
"Shah Nameh", 259 he made a study of a collection of old 
Spanish Chronicles, for which the Strassburg library 
offered him ample opportunity. To be able to do so, he 



257 Galland, op. cit., p. 224. Cf. Schcllberg, Gorres, op. cit., p. 
29 ff. Read Grauert, H., "Gorres in Strassburg, Dritte Vereins- 
schrift der Gorresgesellschaft fur 1910." 

258 Cf. Gorres, "Germany and the Revolution," London, 1820, 
p. 9 (translated by Black). 

259 Gorres, J., "Das Heldenbuch von Iran aus dem Shah- 
Nameh des Firdusi," Berlin, 1829, 2 vols. Cf. Schultz, Joseph 
Gorres, op. cit., p. 191 ; also Galland, op. cit., p. 251 ff. 



120 LIFE OF GORRES 

learned Spanish, and also Icelandic, in order to render 
himself efficient for more intensified researches in the 
Northern Myths and Sagas. 

Meanwhile, that which Gorres had foreseen, and 
warned against, in his "Germany and the Revolution", 
had become a matter of fact. His enemies, with all their 
hate, and the princes with all their power, could not pre- 
vent the unfettered revolutionary spirit to make its 
round from country to country! Beginning in Spain, in 
1820, it made thence its way into Portugal, then on to 
Spanish America ; returning, it entered Sicily ; then Sar- 
dinia. "The whole world", said Metternich, "is crazy in 
its foolish striving after constitutions," — and he reject- 
ed everything which threatened to aid the spirit of poli- 
tical innovations. 

Gorres could not behold tacitly events of such im- 
portant consequences. Leaving Strassburg in June, 
1820, he entered Switzerland, partly, as it seems, in the 
hope of finding there an opportunity of becoming recon- 
ciled with Berlin, after his wife and friends had in vain 
made attempts in that direction, 261 and partly to in- 
vigorate his physical constitution for further work and 
endeavor 

From those mountain heights crowned with unmea- 
sured miles of snow, girded with glaciers as with a coat 
of mail, and towering up among the clouds as though de- 
termined to storm the very heavens, Gorres studied, and 
looked down upon the past and the present of Europe, 
and viewed as in a crystal mirror, with the intensified 
eye of a prophetic seer, the history of its future. At 
Aarau, in the spring of 1821, he wrote out. in 
seven days, the fruits of these meditations, and publish- 
ed them under the title "Europa und die Revolut 



260 Cf. "Gesammelte Briefe," I, pp. 137, 237 f . ; also Galland, op. 
cit.. p. 254. 

261 Cf. Schellberg, op. cit., p. XCVII f., and Galland, op. cit., 
p. 259 ff. 

262 See Ibid., p. 268. The letters of Gorres describing his travels 
through Switzerland, belong to the best accounts on travels found 
in German literature. — "Gesammelte Briefe," Vol. I, pp. 154-229 
(Letters of Gorres from Switzerland). 

263 "Politische Schriften," IV, pp. 24<;-483. 



LIFE OF GORRES 121 

The work is divided into four parts. In the first part, 
which is to serve as an orientation, the author evolves 
two viewpoints of the world's history. The first pre- 
sents Protestantism and modern Rationalism in intimate 
compact with the spirit of the earth (Erdgeist) ; the 
second is a reflection on the conflict between the Spiritual 
and the Natural: between Faith and Science, Catholi- 
cism and Protestantism, Dogmatism and Scepticism, Su- 
per-naturalism and Rationalism, — and sees therein the 
inner root of the great struggle which then, as ever since 
the day of the first sin, divided the world into two oppos- 
ing factions. 

In the second part of the book a resume is taken of the 
centuries that immediately preceded Gorres' own time, 
as containing the germs of the catastrophes that then 
took place, and which he considers but natural conse- 
quences of the combat between Church and State, which 
had also proved the destruction of the Middle Ages. 

This brings Gorres to the events of his own day, and 
so, in the third part, he shows how all the nations of 
Europe, one after another, were being visited by the 
paroxysm of that intermittent fever, the revolution: — 
now trembling in fear of despotism, now convulsed with 
the fever of revolutionary passions. 

In the fourth part, finally, even worse calamities are 
foretold which the nations of Europe will have to under- 
go before the latter will regain its equilibrium, its nor- 
mal state. He consoles the reader, however, by saying, 
"Repeated flood-tides will be followed by repeated ebb- 
tides" : — no matter how tempestuously the terrestial ele- 
ments may move, they will but serve to carry out the will 
of Him Who commands in history, and will verify what 
the Royal Psalmist sang: "Dominus conf regit reges; 
judicabit in nationibus implebit ruinas, conquassabit 
capita in terra multorum.' ,2G4 

The Catholic Church is acknowledged in this work as 
the Church of the living God. Gorres had come to real- 
ize that Christianity, which had brought redemption to 



264 Psalm 106, 5-6. 



122 LIFE OF GORRES 

the individual and true freedom to the children of God, 
is also the only source of a people's redemption. The 
hopes and wishes of many, even in some Catholic circles, 
had been for a national Church, in which Catholics, Lu- 
therans, and all other denominations, were to be united to 
form "One State Church." 295 Gorres himself had favor- 
ed the idea, but had meanwhile come to see that the chief 
cause of the decay of religion was in the dependence and 
subjection of the Church to the State, as it had been 
brought about in the eighteenth century. He had come 
to be convinced that as political and social life has 
stability and force only in the State, so Christian life is 
possible only in the Church, as founded by Christ ; and as 
a sound social system depends on the autonomy and free- 
dom of the State, so religious life rests with the liberty of 
the Church. And, indeed, if it is true, what Goethe says, 
that 

"Wer in die Zeiten schaut und strebt, 

Nur der ist werth, zu sprechen und zu dichten", 

then Gorres had a right to speak as, perhaps, no other; 
for few have seen deeper down the abyss of time, and 
delved more assiduously among the pages of its history. 
A heavy battle, then, was to be fought, not with the ma- 
terial sword, but with weapons of Faith and Talent, in 
order to free the Church from the shackles of oppressive 
State control. Its standard bearer was to be Gorres him- 
self. The seed of religion, that had been planted in his 
heart in childhood, and that which he had meanwhile 
gathered and planted himself by his love for truth and 
noble endeavor, had grown and multiplied, especially in 
these his days of adversity and exile, and was now ready 
to bear its fruit It came about thus : — 

In the year 1821 two young professors in the episcopal 
seminary of Mainz (Mayence), Dr. Raesa and Dr. 
Weiss, assisted by Liebermann and others, and urged by 
an earnest faith, started "The Catholic" (Der Katholik), 



265 This idea found expression in Novalis' "Die Christenheit 
und Europa." 



LIFE OF GORRES 123 

a magazine intended to defend the then almost defence- 
less Church against external attacks, as well as against 
internal dangers, brought about by the introduction of 
false ideas into the Catholic mind. But a narrow- 
minded censure drove the journal from Mainz to Speier, 
and away from Bavaria into Strassburg. Here Lieber- 
mann and Raess won the friendship of Gorres and, with 
it, his support for their periodical, to which he came to 
contribute regularly and zealously from 1824-1827. 266 A 
stream of warm enthusiasm and ardent love for the 
Church of Christ and her dogmas and institutions flows 
through these contributions. For, as Holmes says, "it 
is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that 
makes a life worth looking at." Gorres had through his 
studies and investigations acquired a full confidence in 
the Church and her divine mission here on earth, and he 
resolved to contribute his mite towards assisting her in 
carrying on that mission. 

Again the people listened as Gorres poured forth his 
words of Truth, of Love, and of Justice when, in his 
masterly Glossen, Stromata, and Quodlibets, 267 he lashed 
with his invincible humor and sarcasm, not only the 
evils of the time and the authors of the tales told about 
the formulas of excommunication in the Church, but ex- 
ploded also the "Monita Secreta" of the Jesuits, and re- 
buked the contemptible prejudices and falsehoods 
brought to bear against Catholicity. 

In other articles, such as "St. Francis of Assisi, a 
Troubadour" ; the preface of Diepenbrock's edition of the 
works of "Henry Suso"; a study on "Swedenborg and 
his Visions" ; "Persecution of the Church in Holland" ; 268 
and the "Conflict between the Freedom of the Church 
and the Power of the State in Catholic Switzerland, as 



266 Read, Galland, op. cit., pp. 331-365- It was about this time 
too (1824) that Gorres returned to the fold of the Church, during 
a mission held in Strassburg by the priests of the "Missionaires de 
France," founded by Msgr. de Forbin-Janson. — See "Cath. Ency- 
clopedia," Vol. VI, p. 133, Article: Forbin-Janson. 

267 "Politische Schriften," Vol. V, 177 ff.; 266 ff. ; and 361 ff., 
(partly reprinted). Cf. also Galland, op. cit., p. 340 ff. 

268 "Politische Schriften," Vol. V, pp. 300-328. 



he ra. 
cry of freedom fo: ed her salutary in- 

fluence on the hear e people, portrayed ing 

col truth and moi :ude oi .;• prin- 

ciples, and tang to 

ignore the hollow, empty phrc 
of the "Liberals", and to fight their opponent 
security which Truth alone can g 

er important a: me from the pen of 

Gorres are: "J. V. Voss and his obsequies in Heidel- 
berg", 1 " in which he gives a ma- :count 
anc m, of which 
radical represents it g", 
which event had becor -tone ir. of 
rn to the Church; and a re : :>n- 
tinuation of Stolberg s "History :: Rrfigjon 

Before we cor: follow r r, it 

. be necessary to retrace on and 

bring up some items thai are of not 

i eated. 

had mainly gone to 
hope of finding there an oppc 
become reconciled with the Prussian gove 

1 demand of a return of I mann- 

ed been cor 
d him encouragement to? 
Pi ml aei, in Ju r ect 

to tJ rdenbe: 

had not even received an answer. I :nber of the 

182 red to S 

he became re-united w o had 



:3-j6i (partly reprinted). 
• 
- VoL IL p. 

H 

:uch, 
pzig. 19". 
:na!ismu ; had 

- 

".. p. sa9- 

and, op. ciu p. 240 f. 
Galland, op. cit., p. 263 f. 



LIFE OF GORRES 125 

come to share with him his exile. He returned with them 
to Switzerland and took up his abode in Aarau. Here 
they remained until October, 1821, when they retraced 
their steps once more to Strassburg. 274 

Gorres now severed the last thread that connected him 
with Prussia. Finding his efforts unsuccessful in having 
the decree against him revoked, he published in the be- 
ginning of the year 1822 his defense, "The Condition and 
Affairs of the Rhine Province and Personal Affairs" (In 
Sachen der Rheinprovinz und in eigener Angelegen- 
heit), 275 which article he had completed shortly before 
leaving Aarau. It contains a brilliant vindication of 
himself against the attitude of the Prussian government ; 
but, with it, he tore down every bridge that would have 
made a return possible. 276 

In the meantime the Revolution had been, and was, 
tossing to and fro among the countries of Europe. To 
meet the threatening danger, the members of the Holy 
Alliance, who had met, first at Troppau (1820), then at 
Laibach (1821), were now, 1822, meeting in the Con- 
gress of Verona. Gorres, always on the lookout, gave ex- 
pression to his thoughts, hopes, and wishes in a work, 
written on the eve of the Congress, entitled ''The Holy 
Alliance and the People in the Congress of Verona" (Die 
heilige Alliance und die Voelker auf dem Congress von 
Verona). 277 He demands that the Congress be not only 
one of the princes (rulers), but also of the people, — the 
people's voice being the "Vox Dei". He meditates on the 
conditions existing in the various countries of Europe, 
nay, on those of the world at large, and on the sources 
of the existing evils, — and then passes on to his own 
country. He examines the various races and parties of 
the empire (Austrian) on which depends the re-birth of 
the German nation, and then makes the following state- 
ment: "The entire generation that saw the Revolu- 
tion, and bore both shame and honor, — none of these, 



274 Cf. Ibid., pp. 270 and 279. 

275 "Politische Schriften," IV, pp. 485-640. 

276 Cf. Schellberg, Gorres, op. cit., p. 28. 

277 "Politische Schriften," V, pp. 1-124. 



126 LIFE OF GORRES 

neither rulers nor people, shall see the Promised Land, 
the land of Freedom and of Rest."" 

Yet, Gorres does not despair, but rests his hope in the 
political virtues of the German people, — in their hoarded 
treasure of religious faith, in their capacity for idealis- 
tic enthusiasm, in their valor, their sound and healthy- 
domestic virtues, their moral strength and unshakable 
loyalty, and in their uprightness, industry, and sobriety. 
A re-birth (national), he says, cannot take place on part 
of the government alone by mere formulas and enact- 
ments, but only through the mutual cooperation between 
both government and people. 279 

The time of humiliation was now to end for 
Gorres. The daily prayer of the devout Diepenbrock 
was to see its fulfillment, namely: "that the Lord might 
preserve him (Gorres) yet many years, and give him 
daily an abundance of grace and light and power for 
carrying out the noble mission for which the Lord had 
prepared him, i. e., to be a witness, a champion, of the 
ETERNAL TRUTHS in the face of a corrupt genera- 
tion''.- It happened thus: — In November, 1825, there 
appeared in the "Catholic", from the pen of Gorres, 
an article bearing the title "Der Kurfuerst Maximilian 
der Erste an den Koenig Ludwig von Baiem bei seiner 
Thronbesteigung,"-- 1 which is an outline of virtue 
and justice as a prince should possess them. King Louis 
received a copy of it through the courtesy of Ringseis,-- 
a circumstance which eventually led to a favorable 
change in the external affairs of Gorres. 

King Louis succeeded his father, King Maximilian, on 
the throne of Bavaria, October 12, 1825. Through the 
influence of Diepenbrock, and the good impression 
Gorres had made at the Munich Court by the said 
apostrophe, the latter obtained from the King, in 1827, 



^78 


Ci. Ibid., p. 118 f. 


279 


Cf. Ibid., p. 119 ff. 


280 


See Galland. op. cit., p. 365 (translated). 


281 


"Politische Schriften, V, pp. 235-236. 


- - 


;-. cit.. p. 378. 



LIFE OF GORRES 127 

the chair of the professorship of history in the Univer- 
sity of Munich. 

Here Gorres became the center of that group of dis- 
tinguished Catholic thinkers whom King Louis had 
gathered together, in order to promote a strong and 
free development of the hitherto debased and despised 
Catholicism. Among the most eminent members 
of this circle we find the names of Arndts, Cornelius, 
Doellinger, Moehler, Phillips, Ringseis, and Streber, the 
efforts of whom form so brilliant an epoch in the his- 
tory of the revival of Catholic life in Germany. 

Gorres* nomination to the Munich professorship, marks 
the fourth 283 and last epoch of his life. It was for him 
the glorious evening of an eventful career. What 
mattered it now that he had suffered ! Everything that 
strengthens hurts. This is true in music, in art, every- 
where; it is especially true in the making of a great 
character. Gorres was well prepared for the great work 
that lay before him, — that of defending the Rights of 
the Church of which the Catholics of Germany are still 
enjoying the fruits, and of scattering broadcast the seeds 
of true Christian ideals and principles as a further and 
yet stronger effort against the deceitful Rationalism, that 
was still flooding the country and materializing the 
minds of both rulers and people. 

The Rationalists had made every effort to prevent 
Gorres' appointment to the University chair. When this 
had become an accomplished fact in spite of their op- 
position, they prophesied, since "the wish is father to the 
thought", that he would have no listeners. However, the 
first lecture was so well attended that the hall, in which it 
was held, proved almost too small. As time went on the 
attendance rather increased than diminished, so that 
soon a larger hall had to be assigned to him. In a letter 
to Diepenbrock, Gorres speaks of a frequent attendance 
of almost five hundred persons. 284 



283 We allow ourselves a fourfold division of the life of Gor- 
res : 1. The Storm and Stress Period. 2. The Romantic Period. 
3. The Exile. 4. The Munich Period. 

284 Cf. "Gesammelte Briefe," III, p. 312-315 (Letter of Dec. 20, 
1827). 



128 LIFE OF GORRES 

Through Gorres and his co-workers: — Schelling, 
Baader, H. Schubert, Ring ken, Cornelius, the two 

Doellingers, and others, Munich became the intellect- 
ual center of the whole of Germany, with Gorres as 
"King Arthur of the Round Table". And as the Gorres 
house in Coblenz, during the days of t ^ra- 

.."', had been the health of patriotic activities, so 
the Munich house, on the Schoenfeldst- :.ugly pack- 

ed away from the noise of the world, become the home, 
the nursery, of the new-awakening Catholic life and ac- 
tivity in the German a rendezvous of the 
foremost men in Church and State, and of the most fa- 
mous names in science and art. 

Besides the above named, there came here Major Sey- 
fried, the younger Windishmann, Haneberg, Brentano, 
Rio. Sebastian Brunner, von Moy, Ernst von Lassaulx, 
Boehmer, Jareke. At intervals Gorres was visited by 
such political and religious leaders of Catholicism in 
oth- ts Lacordaire, Lamenn; M ntalem- 

bert, and Giovanelli. For the superiority of his por- 
ously productive and thoroughly independent 
mind and the nobility of his moral disposition which 
knew not self-seeking, gave Gorres a charm which v 

::ract magnanir. ~. And, to a x uote 

Galland again, "the Gorres Heme, the trellised gate of 
which opened so easily an to close. — with 

a hous; penhearted, so unob- 

tru. benevolent towards every visitor, 

was indeed an asylum that had not its equal anywhere. 
:<ever came here once, desired to return ; for here 
dwelt moral strength and Rhenish candor, the most un- 
affected mode of life and social intercou 
not only propounded and demonstrated the principles of 
life, as he idealized them, he also carried them out in 
own life. And, exclaimed Boehmer, in reference to the 



Galland, op. cit.. p. 40; :.\$o Baumgartner 

zen und Urteile zu den Literaturen vorsohied- 
Freiburg -?anzungsheft) pp. 315 and 317. 



LIFE OF GORRES 129 

mode of life in Gorres' Munich home, "happy those who 
may take part in living such a life." 286 

Considering Gorres in his capacity of teacher, we find 
him such too in the fullest sense of the word. For if 
efficiency, a far-reaching experience, talent, and finding 
pleasure in the eliciting of effort, a thorough understand- 
ing of the abilities and needs of the pupils, and, finally, 
enthusiasm in the pursuit of a noble aim, constitute the 
qualifications of a good teacher, then Gorres was one in- 
deed. Gorres was a thinker, a critic, a reader, an arguer, 
a ponderer. He had learned when to hold judgment in 
suspense and when to give the wings of the soul free 
flight through the serene realms of truth and spiritual 
beauty. Relative to this Sebastian Brunner says, "Man 
muss sich angeregt fuehlen von der Kraft dieses maech- 
tigen Geistes." 287 The imperishable goods of man are 
Truth, Freedom, Love, and Beauty, and who realized the 
value of these treasures more than Gorres ? They form- 
ed the core of every one of his lectures, as they form the 
core of every one of his works. In the mirror that he 
continually holds up to all we read: — Valuable alone is 
that which enriches and ennobles mind, for this alone en- 
riches and ennobles life. Gorres kept aloof from the 
crowd with its fluctuating opinions, and, consequently, 
his thoughts could be better and truer, and they were 
so. 

No wonder, then, that we find Gorres, in his day, the 
most popular professor at the Munich University, and 
that the silent admiration of his pupils followed him be- 
yond the grave. In grateful reverence they kept alive, 
and cherished highly, the memory of their beloved 
teacher, happy whenever a page written by his own 
hand, or a book which he had used, or any other article, 
found its way into their possession. As distrust is the 
mark of a narrow intellect, or a degenerate heart, so is 



286 Gluecklich alle die, welche ein solches Leben mitleben, 
Galland, p. 409. See also Schellberg, op. cit., I, p. CXX. 

287 Galland, op. cit., p. 406. Cf. Brunner, S., "Einige Studen 
bei Gorres," Regensburg, 1848, 2nd ed., p. 22 ff. Read also Schell- 
berg, op. cit., II, p. 714-718 (Anmerkungen — "Announcement of 
his (Gorres*) lectures in Heidelberg," i. e., his opening lecture. 



130 LIFE OF GORRES 

readiness to believe in the ability of oneself and of others 
the characteristic of an able and great mind, and also 
the secret charm which attracts helpers and followers. 
And, according to Haneberg, it was just this trait in 
Gorres which was the source of the enthusiastic love 
that the students entertained for their master and will 
ever entertain for him. 288 "Those who have listened to 
him, and that intelligently," says the same author, 
"know how little I say when I make the statement that 
his life cannot be obliterated. When in his lectures on 
history he tried to demonstrate the unity that exists 
amidst a confusion of facts, and pointed out the leading 
laws in a multiplicity of phenomena, was it not as if his 
mighty arm were leading us up to overtowering moun- 
tain heights, whence, expanded before our eyes, we view- 
ed the migrating routes of the nations, the various sys- 
tems of civilization, wending their way like streams 
and mountain ranges ! And when he descended from the 
summit of order-making unity into the valley of muster- 
ing details, what a well-furnished market of living real- 
ities moved past us ! And when alongside of what seems 
merely accidental in history, he pointed out the signs of 
a conscious guidance of God (einer bewussten Gottes- 
fuehrung), what a reverence for the Divine overcame 

his audience ! All the better emotions had to bestir 

themselves, had to germinate, and had to produce blos- 
soms while he spoke." 289 And the power to stir up with 
high hopes of living to be great and worthy men, to in- 
spire faith in the seriousness and goodness of life, is in- 
deed a sufficient proof of the worth of an educator. 

Gorres' philosophy culminates in history. He recog- 
nizes history as a living unit, limited by internal laws, 
sharing with Herder the idea, as he did, that everything 
grows and develops, that nothing is perfected at once : — 
that there is organic growth everywhere, and so also in 
histoiy. He perceives mankind as an integral part of the 



288 See "Historisch-Politische Blaetter," p. 251 ff. Article: Fu- 
neral Oration of Gorres by Dr. Haneberg, pp. 232-257. 

289 Ibid., p. 254 (translated). 



LIFE OF GORRES 131 

life of the world, and beliefs and institutions as having 
their roots in the history of man, and must, therefore, be 
judged in their concrete setting. History, with him, is 
but the "Game of Human Liberty" within the laws of na- 
ture, following the footsteps of the invisible regulating 
POWER, the red thread of the NEMESIS along the 
'Track of Time." 290 

History begins with the Creation; it has its root in 
God. God is present everywhere; nothing takes place 
unless He wills or permits it. Divine Providence, ever 
vigilant, directs the course of events; and its light, 
mirroring itself in those who are of good will, rounds it- 
self, by dispersion, into that arch of peace which has its 
seat over the waters of old. 291 

Two opposite forces reveal themselves in history : Na- 
ture and Spirit. The former, although peremptory in it- 
self, is not without light: — the creative power of God 
rules within, and light is, therefore, its essential element. 
Divine Providence, Divine Purpose, guides and directs, 
but does not coerce, the flashing laws of freedom, 
holding nature alone fettered by the reins of necessity. 292 

This divine principle in all things, Gorres makes the 
basis, the directing norm and aim and end of history* 
History has its innermost unity in God, in the conscious- 
ness of the Infinite and Eternal, bound together by 
Thought and Love. God is the Lord and Builder, the 
Highest Architect. But the making of designs presup- 
poses workmen to carry them out. This God does by 
means of man: — in man He established His Kingdom 
and through him He works out His designs. 293 

Again, since the world was created by God, the Prin- 
ciple of Goodness, all things were, and are, originally 
good in themselves. But God, in His infinite love, en- 



290 Schelling called History the "Great Mirror of the World- 
Soul," the "Eternal Poem of Divine Reason." Cf. Sepp, Gor- 
res, op. cit., p. 180. See also Gorres, J. J., Ueber Grundlage, Gdieder- 
ung und Zeitenfolge der Weltgeschichte," Muenchen, 1880, p. 6 ff. 

291 Cf. Ibid., p. 11 f. 

292 Cf. Grundlage, etc., op. cit., p. 9. 

293 Cf. "Sechs Geschichtliche Vorlesungen von Gorres," His- 
torisch-Politische Blaetter," Vol. XXVIII, p. 384 ff (Erste Vorle- 
jung). 



132 LIFE OF GORRES 

dowed the human soul with free will. This was 
abused, and sin, evil, came into the world. History 
therefore, above all, * must represent a process of puri- 
fication and of leading back to God. History as such, 
of course, cannot accomplish this. Divine Mercy, 
therefore, descended to fallen man — and a new and 
higher light shone into the darkness of the world. 
The doctrine of Christ was to be the new light, the new 
principle, which was to lay the foundation for the re- 
generating process that is to be brought about in history. 
Through the Incarnation, Clemency and Love entered 
the realm of history, while Knowledge, based on reason, 
was to be supplemented and strengthened by a higher 
knowledge, — that of Divine Revelation. 294 

These are some of the principles according to which 
Gorres propounded to his students the history of the 
world. To him the whole of history appeared as one con- 
tinuous divine creation, a drama composed by God Him- 
self: — a living, all-embracing organism in which the 
greatest as well as the smallest lives its life by virtue of 
that same God ; a mighty realm of order and harmony, in 
which the smaller instinctively subordinates itself to the 
greater and the greater to the greatest. Thus only, says 
Gorres, can we understand intelligently the nature and 
events in history. 295 Boehmer calls Gorres' conception 
of history "eine titantische", while Heine, in his "Die 
Romantische Schule", criticizes him for confusion and 
obscurity. The music of spiritual life, of course, can be 
interpreted only by those who themselves are imbued 
with it as with a living, breathing reality. 

Gorres desired it very much that a Christian interpre- 
tation of history be brought again into recognition. He, 
therefore, called into existence the excellent and timely 
publication "Gott in der Geschichte, Bilder aus alien 
Jahrhunderten der Christlichen Zeitrechnung." 299 Other 



294 Cf. Ibid., p. 386 ff. See also ibid., pp. 460 ff., 533 ff., and 

693 «. 

295 Cf. Galland, op. cit., pp. 528-550. 

296 "Historisch-Politische Blaetter," Vol. 21, p. 311 f., contains 
a list of articles which Gorres contributed to this publication. 



LIFE OF GOkRES 133 

historical works from his pen are "Die Japhetiden und 
ihre Gemeinsame Heimat Armenien", 1844, 297 and "Die 
drei Grundwurzeln des keltischen Stammes in Gallien 
und ihre Einwanderung", 1845. 298 In the former work 
he aimed to defend and vindicate the Mosaic account of 
mankind, against the attack on part of the atheistic 
critique of the day, and in the latter to clear up the 
Gaelic saga. Political questions received his attention 
in the "Eos", a review founded by Herbst, in 1828. The 
year 1842 saw his "Der Koelner Dom und das Muenster 
von Strassburg", in which he demonstrates the epic- 
symbolic meaning of the two houses of worship for the 
purpose of awakening in the hearts of its readers a deep 
religious feeling, without which no true interpretation 
of art is possible. 

But what engrossed the attention of Gorres most since 
his sojourn in Strassburg, was the study of Mysticism, 
Mystic Theology. He carefully studied its various 
phases, and strove,by every means at his disposal,to com- 
prehend thoroughly the nature of Christian Mysticism, 
which stands in so strong a contrast with Rationalism. 
His many travels to Tyrol and Northern Italy, since 1830, 
were all made for the purpose of research work in this 
field. There lived at this time in Tyrol the estatic young 
women Dominica Lazarri, Crescentia Niglutsch, and 
Maria von Mori, through whom the higher mystical life 
of grace was placed anew before the world. Gorres was 
particularly interested in Maria von Mori of Kaltern in 
Southern Tyrol. He saw her frequently and made close 
observations and studies of the various phenomena con- 
nected with her mystical life. He looked upon her as one 
to whom was given the care of the sanctuary lamp, that 
its light might not be extinguished through indifference, 
while infidelity and irreligion were abroad devastating 
the vineyard of the Lord. 299 



297 Second edition, Regensburg, 1845, entitled "Die Voelkerta- 
fel des Pentateuch." 

298 Reprinted in "Abhandlungen der Historischen Classe der 
Koenigl. Bayerischen Academie der Wissenschaften, Vierter 
Band; in Reihe der Denkschriften der XX. Band, Miinchen, 1846. 

299 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 484 ff.; also Gorres, J. J. von, "Die 
Christliche Mystik," Regensburg, 1879, Vol. II, p. 510. 



134 LIFE OF GORRES 

Gorres, finally, found himself prepared to write his 
great work, "Die Christliche Mystic." But since this will 
be the subject matter of the succeeding chapter we shall 
pass on to Gorres, as the great champion on the side of 
the German Catholics, in the great conflict that was then 
being waged between Church and State. 

In 1836 Clement August of Droste-Vischering was 
elevated to the Arch-bishopric of Cologne, and happened 
to get into conflict with the government regarding mixed 
marriages. In Prussia, in 1S03. the common law regard- 
ing mixed marriages was so formed that, unless both 
parents were opposed to it, the children were required 
to be educated in the church of the father. By an order 
of the Cabinet, issued in 1825, this requisition was ex- 
tended to the province of the Rhine (and to West- 
phalia) . A brief of Pius VIII. the "Venerabilis fratres," 
March 25, 1830, stated that the laws of the Church on 
mixed marriages could not be made to harmonize with 
the royal decree of 1825. Droste insisted on earning 
out the Brief; the government remained obstinate, and, 
in consequence, affairs came to a crisis. On the evening 
of November 20. 1837, the Bishop was forcibly taken 
from his archiepiscopal residence and imprisoned in the 
fortress of Minden. It was then that Gorres wrote in 
four weeks his greatest work, "Athanasius". Having 
stood so long on the watchtower observing and noticing 
the signs of the times, he saw that the moment had come 
to strike the decisive blow for the liberty of the Church, 
and he did so. 

The first part of the work is devoted to a brilliant vin- 
dication of the conduct of the Archbishop. "He suffers", 
says Gorres. "because he wants to render to Caesar the 
things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are 
God's. The ruler is to be the protector (Schirmvogt), 
not the oppressor (Zwingvogt) of the Church." He de- 
manded that the prelate be placed before an open court, 
in face of both confessions, Catholics as well as Protest- 
ants, and that he be judged by an ecclesiastical court, 
since even Constantine, previous to his baptism, had 



LIFE OF GORRES 135 

found it expedient that a Bishop be judged by an eccle- 
siastical court. 300 

Gorres condemned the doctrine of total separation of 
Church and State as heresy. He says that as long as 
the Catholic Christian viewpoint of the world, i. e., the 
continuity of the Supernatural with the Natural, of Re- 
velation with Reason, of the Spiritual with the Temporal, 
prevailed, there was present, in Church and State, order 
and harmony, which to bring about is the great prin- 
ciple of organization in the kingdom of God. Love of 
God and neighbor was then the bond which united all in- 
to a higher living whole. But when puffed up by arro- 
gance and pride, man revolted against this order that 
was sustaining him, and began the struggle against the 
Church, then there developed in all fields a wholesale 
process of disintegration, which has continued through 
the centuries down to our own day. First came the Re- 
formation, which was but an apostasy from the union 
of the two natures in man, the Spiritual and the Ma- 
terial; — it has since split up into Rationalism and Piet- 
ism; and that which the Reformation has accomplished 
in the Church, the Revolution has accomplished in the 
State, so that here, too, a disruption came about by 
that same process of disintegration. With the re- 
volt against that "great principle of unity" in the 
Church, there came that appalling confusion of ideas, of 
the principle of "Right" and of "Life" : — that rage of the 
tyranny of Reason which claims the power to bind and to 
fetter with formulas of figures and characters all that is 
higher in man ; — that absolute materialistic viewpoint of 
the world which has taken hold of the minds as though 
it had seen the head of the Medusa : — upon the shoulders 
of these three genii of our present century must be laid 
the responsibility of the catastrophe that has befallen 

US. 301 ' 

Thus spoke Gorres. In vain did Rationalists, Pietists, 
Hegelians, Hermesians, Jansenists, Jurists, and Politi- 



300 Cf. Gorres, "Athanasius," Regensburg, 1838, p. 16 f., 46 f., 
and 87 f. 

301 Cf. Athanasius, op. cit., pp. 90 ff., 93 f., 95 ff., 125 f. (trans.) 



136 LIFE OF GORRES 

cians, send out their invectives. Ere long "Athanasius." 
in four large editions, had spread over all Germany, and 
was read everywhere. The Catholics saw in its pages 
clearly and definitely stated what for centuries, as pains 
and wishes and hopes, had slumbered in their bosoms. 
A powerful Catholic viewpoint and public opinion now 
arose in Germany, which enforced respect on every side. 

History tells the outcome of the cause under question. 
With Frederic William IV ascending the throne of 
Prussia, June 7, 1840, the innocence of the Archbishop 
and the rights of the Church were acknowledged, and 
matters came to be adjustec: 

After the settlement of the Cologne troubles, Gorres 
wrote, in 1842, his "Kirche und Staat nach Ablauf der 
Kolner Wirren", in which he takes a short but profound 
retrospect of the event, which was to be of such import 
for the future of Catholic Germany, verifying the signi- 
ficant words which are found on the title page of the 
"Athanasius", "0 felix culpa, quae talem ac tantum 
meruit habere redemptorem". 

Previous to this, in 1838, Gorres had written, in 
answer to the critics of the "Athanasius", a work called 
the "Triarier," in which he opposed H. Leo, P. Marhein- 
icke, and K. Bruno, as the advocates of liberalism in 
science. It achieved the spiritual victory over the trio. 303 

Gorres was now at the zenith of his fame. 3 * Such 
men of distinction as the Duke de Chambord, Prince de 
Montmorency, Archduke Charles of Austria, Prince 
Mettemich, the Dukes Stolberg, Resseguier, Bielinski, 
and others, considered it an honor to visit or to get 
into communication with him. When his son Guido 
visited Rome in the autumn of 1848, and was granted 
two private audiences with the Pope, the latter greeted 



302 See Alzog, J., op. cit., Mainz ed., pp. 1102 and 11 04. 

303 The same volume contains also two treatises written in 
commemoration of the first two anniversaries of Droste's arrest, 
Nov. 20. 1837. Phillips places the "Triarier" even above the "Atha- 
nasius." — (Galland, op. cit., p. 616). 

304 On New Year's Day of 1839, King Louis bestowed on Gor- 
res the "Civil Order of Merit" with which was connected the per- 
sonal title of nobility. 



LIFE OF GORRES 137 

him on the first occasion with these words, "Lei e il 
figlio (Tun grande padre ; il suo padre ha scritto il Atan- 
asio," and on the second occasion, "Le e il figlio di San 
Atanasio." But the best reward, no doubt, Gorres 
found within himself, in the consciousness of having 
done his duty, and of having well applied the great gifts 
of mind and heart of which he was the possessor. 

Together with the "Athanasius," Catholic opinion 
found a vehicle in the Historisch-Politische Blatter, edit- 
ed in Munich by a number of Gorres* friends. Of this 
publication, too, Gorres was the chief support. It open- 
ed its career in 1838, under the editorial management of 
Phillips and Guido Gorres, with a most interesting ar- 
ticle, "Die Weltlage," from the pen of Gorres. Gorres' 
last contribution, "Die Aspekten an der Zeitenwende", a 
very significant article regarding the conditions of the 
time as they then existed, appeared in the January num- 
ber of 1848, shortly before his death, while there is not 
one of the preceding twenty volumes, with the exception 
of volume seven, which does not contain something from 
his gifted pen. 305 

Once more Gorres steps forth as the Champion of 
Catholic life and principles in his "Die Wallfahrt nach 
Trier", in 1845, and then Gorres ceased to be a publicist. 
No one had done more to aid "Truth" and "Right". No 
other had seen so clearly into the future. He had at- 
tacked egotism and abuse of power wherever he met 
them. His enemy, therefore, was legion. Yet, says 
Galland, and truly so, you will seek in vain for one word 
of invective against his adversaries in any one of his 
works. It was the matter that he considered in any 
question of dispute, and not the man. He hammered 
down on Absolutism, and Rationalism, and False Enlight- 
enment, and Godlessness ; carved Iniquity with the knife 
of satire, and scourged Folly by his wit, but in the midst 
of the battle he had ever a friendly hand to stretch out 
to his opponent. 306 



305 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 621 ff. From 1843-47, Sepp wrote his 
"Life of Jesus," of which Gorres wrote the introduction. In a 
later popular edition, this latter is wanting. 

306 Cf. "Gesammelte Brief e," II, pp. 80, 116 f., and 545 f.— Notice 
Gorres' sentiments towards Voss and Frederic William III. 



I - LIFE OF GORRES 

On January 29, 1848, at about 7 o'clock in the morn- 
ing, Gorres died, after a short illness of about two wet 
and well prepared by the rites of the Church. In the af- 
ternoon of the day set for his burial, January 31st, his 
pupils bore him on their shoulders to his last resting 
place. 

Here, then, we have in short the life of Gorres, the 
German O'Connell, as he is often called. He stands out 
before . as benefactor, not only of his own coun: 
but of mankind at large. Bernheim refers to him as one 
of those who, after the French Revolution, have made it 
their endeavor to accommodate to the progress of time the 

tfaoMc viewpoint of the world, first formulated by St 
Augustine in his 22. libri de Civitate Dei.- " And if some 
have called Gorres igotedly religious," 2 - "the honor- 
able Jacobin in the monk's cowl," 3 ? "free spirited zealot" 
and "Hotspur," 31 ' "Dunkelmann" 3 " and "feurigster 
Schwaermer fuer die kirchliche und religiose Scl; 
rei' a cannot detract the least from the greatness in 

which he stands forth before those who can appreciate 
true gr^ Those men were, or are, not of his mind, 

nor of his heart, and he consequently remained, or re- 
mains, to them an enigma. Spalding sa; uld you 
have an ox admire the sunrise or the pearly dew, when all 
he feels the need of is grass ?" Gorres was right when he 
held that the religious view of life must forever remain 
the true view, since no other explains our Umgimga and 
w justifies our hopes and enthusiasms. 
may close this effort of analyzing and syn the: ::.:..: 



307 .ethode und der 
ilosophie," Leipzig. 1903. pp. 639 and 640. On page 

409, ibid, (note), G: - with impartiality in 

308 Bra- 

309 Ireil Nineteenth Cen- 

- I. p. 368. 

310 Ibid., p. 604. 

311 "Allgememe deutsche Biograpr Lr.~zig. 1879, Vol. IX. 

.-eschichte der de Lfteratnr," Leipzig, 

1870. Vol. Ill, p. 709 a. Baumgartner speaks of G: der 

hochbegs. bte rph von Gorres (op. cit., p. 307); 
Bobeth as "der tapfere Gorres" (op. cit., p. 162). 



LIFE OF GORRES 139 

the life of "des gewaltigen Sakularmenschen," as a 
writer calls Gorres', 313 in the masterly lines from the pen 
of one of his students, Johann Schrott — 

"0 deutsches Volk, der grossten Sonne einen 
Hast du verloren, den dein Boden trug, 
Sein war dein Jauchzen und dein Weinen, 
Sein jede Wunde, die der Feind dir schlug. 
Fur dich hat er gerungen und gestritten, 
Du hast allein sein grosses Herz besessen, 
Und dir zu Liebe hat er viel gelitten, 
Doch Alles hast du heute schier vergessen." 314 

But, happily, Gorres has not been forgotten in his na- 
tive land, as it would appear from the last line of the 
above epitaph; nor has his work perished with him, as 
we shall see in Chapter X. The said line refers to the 
revolutionary years of the middle of the last century. 



313 Kehrein, J., "Biographischliterarisches Lexikon der katho- 
lischen deutschen Dichter, Volks und Jugendschriftsteller," 
Stuttgart, 1886, p. 119. 

314 Galland, op. cit., p. 1 (Einleitung). 



140 GORRES" 'DIE CHRI5TLICHE MYSTIK " 

CHAPTER IX. 

GORRES' "DIE CHRISTLICHE MYSTIK." 

We have seen how the whole life of Gorre pent, 

in the combat with the tendency of the age to do away 
mystery," with the belief in the Supernatural. 
Much had been accomplished in counteracting this ten- 
dency, not only by Gorres and his co-workers, but also by 
such able defender- rrnaturalism in the Protestant 

Church as previously spoken of. -" Rationalism had 
about reached the eve of its glory in Germany, when 
David Strauss arose to gather, in a last and desperate 
effort, all its forces, as it were, to maintain its 
field. Like Apelles of old, he rushed forth in his "Life 
of Jesus L835, to deal the death blow to its opponent, 

: ernaturalism. But, in the field of the latter, he was to 
meet with another Apelles fully his equal. This was 
Gorres in his '"Die Christliche Mystk," 1836-1542 

Scientists, philosophers, and even theologians, Catho- 
lic as well as Protestant, had carefully avoided coming 
in contact with Mystic: id they, in the words of 

Gorres, "Hiite dich Kind, - ■:! man we:- hon 

zum Vorau - ee 1st AHes Aberglauben aus dem Xebel- 
land, wo sie das Wetter brauen.'" '-" Gorres himself 
opens the preface of the work in asking the question : 

ny a book on II m at a time so unfavorable as 

this? Has not the final word been spoken on this sub- 
ject long ago? Does it not lie abjectly imprisoned in the 
Dresden library under the repulsive title "Philosophia 
■ However, Gorres thought it necessary 
that the atmosphere be incensed somewhat with holy 
things in order to give relief to the world that had be- 
come oppressed, choked, with the heavy vapor of the 



:ion, Chapter III, p. 53; also Hurst, op. cit., 
ipters IX a::d X. 

316 Four volumes ; 2nd e 

317 - Regensburg - 
I. p. 12 (Vorrede). 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 141 

"Assa foetida" of the Rationalists, which it was forced 
to inhale for so long a time. 318 

No doubt it did require more than ordinary courage 
to come forward with a subject, such as Christian Mys- 
ticism, in an age which had become accustomed, as to 
Canon Sheehan, not to see cumuli or cirrhi, but only gases 
in transition from form to form ; not man in all his glory 
and dignity as it comes to him from his "Sonship of God" 
and "Heirship of Heaven", — but only in his skeleton or 
crumbling frame in one shape or another of decomposi- 
tion and disease. 319 

But Gorres was equal to the task. Sainte-Foi says, 
"Personne n'etait plus en etat que lui d' aborder une 
matiere aussi delicate, et de la traiter convenablement . . 
Plusieurs, meme parmi ses amis, s' etonnaient quelque- 
fois de le voir consacrer les derniers efforts de sa vie a 
une oeuvre dont ils ne comprenaient pas Y importance. 
Mais lui, avec ce regard prophetique que donne le genie, 
appuye sur une longue experience, apercevait deja les 
premiers symptomes de ces desordres monstrueux de Y 
esprit et du coeur que nous voyons se produire au grand 
jour sous nos yeux." 320 

When Gorres speaks of Christian Mysticism he means 
the mysticism which has its home in the Gospels, and as 
such, in the Church founded by Christ. Its foundation 
and source is the Incarnation, — the union of the divine 
with the human, in order that the latter may be united 
with the divine. What took place in Christ and what 
was done by Him and through Him, was not to be merely 
a passing event: — it was to endure in His Church and 
pass on from generation to generation in endless con- 
tinuity as a forcible testimony of the supernatural. The 
Incarnation itself was to be continued in the Holy 
Eucharist, while the sublime life and the wonderful 



318 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, p. III. 

319 Cf. Sheehan, "The Intellectuals," New York and London, 
191 1, p. 244. See also "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, p. IV 
ff. ; also Sainte-Foi, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 6 f. (Preface du Traducteur). 

320 Ibid., op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 6 and 7 (Preface du Traducteur). 



gOrres* 'DIE christuche mystik" 

works of Chr> 'ding t: n pron. 

to be continued in the saints. The former, together with 
the other means of g: restitutes the esoteric side, 

and the latter the exoteric side of Christian M mJ** 

all know that there is in our soul a capacity for 
more truth and perfection and happiness than we can 
Br acquire through the knowledge and pc n of 

the lin::^ [There is :ruth in the saying, "Man's aim al- 
ways exceeds his gi sp." In art, in morals, in science, 
he seems continually i :t the relative, because it 

certain cor. ;f the absolute, the 

iL the infinite, — a certain appre of 

the standard which he has never been able to formulate 
for hirr. ine, who perhaps more than any 

other, has sounded the enigma and depth of man's life 
and nature, gr we the explanation when he 
Z rmine) e :e delectat : quia fe: 

est inquietum est cor nostrum donee requiescat in 

God being the end of man, the human heart, whether 

rin or without the Church. and al- 

ill seek. rest in Rir. ve to know 

God, to love Him, and become united with Him. The 

hods which man adopts for rpose may be, and, 

no doubt, are determined by varying temperaments or 

but among them has always been and al- 

ill be the inner — the effort to pass beyond 

many-colored dome of life into the "white radiar. 

of true reality beyond i: 

However, a direct or immediate or empirical knowl- 



-.men I say to you, he that believeth in Me the 
works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he 
do." (St. Joh gain, "Bnt when he. the Spirit of 

truth, is come, he will teach you all truth. For he shall not 
.'< of himself, but what tbinf er he shaU hear, he shall 

speak: and the things that are to come, he shall shew you. He 
shall gl:- he shall receive of mine, and shall shew 

it to you." (Ibid. 14)- 

: L L p. 167 ff. 
edition, Leipzig. 1837. p. 1. 
iture and Value," 
London, 1910, p. 40 f. 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 143 

edge of God we cannot have in the ordinary course of 
things, as follows from the very nature of the case: — 
God is no more to be directly apprehended by our senses 
than an idea or a thought or emotion. But, so the 
Church teaches, what man cannot know by natural rea- 
son he can know through revelation and faith, that 
which he cannot attain by his natural powers he can 
reach by the grace of God. God has gratuitously ele- 
vated human nature to a supernatural state. He has as- 
signed as its ultimate end the direct vision of Himself, 
the Beatific Vision. But this end can only be reached in 
the next life; in the present life we can but prepare our- 
selves for it with the aid of revelation and grace. To 
some souls, however, even in the present life, God gives 
a very special grace by which they are exalted to feel His 
sensible presence. The soul, in this instance, is elevated, 
so to say, by an act of God, above the influences of the 
senses and the sphere of the sensible world into an at- 
mosphere of calm and profound contemplation, approach- 
ing, at least remotely, in this sublime exercise of the 
nobler faculties, the state of angelic beings or the condi- 
tion of incorporate spirits. It constitutes what is called 
true contemplation, or Divine Union. In this act there 
is no annihilation or absorption of the creature into God, 
but, according to St. John of the Cross, "the substance of 
God touches the substance of the soul," 325 i. e., God be- 
comes intimately present to the created mind, and this, 
enlightened by special light, contemplates with ineffable 
joy the Divine Essence. It is this phase in the life of the 
saints, and this alone, that really constitutes true or Di- 
vine Mysticism: 326 — supernatural visions, as such, mira- 
cles, etc., are secondary, and if bestowed, are bestowed 
for the welfare of the Universal Church (zum Wohle der 
ganzen Kirchengemeinschaft) . 327 



325 "St. John of the Cross, The Living Flame of Love,' " Trans- 
lated by Lewis, London, 1911, Stanza II, 1, IV. See also Louismet, 
op. cit., Chap. I. 

326 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 21, 167-174, and 
494 f. 

327 Cf. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 177. 



144 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

But since miracles, visions, etc., may, and do occur in 
the corporal and spiritual lives of the saints, Gorres en- 
deavors to give us not a bare and dry history of them, but 
to explain and prove them scientifically. Thus far Hagi- 
ology had been written for edification only; Gorres sought 
to write it not only for the sake of edification, but also for 
that of truth. s:s Modern scientific methods had endea- 
vored, and were endeavoring, to prove away the belief in 
the supernatural. But Gorres holds that an attack from 
a scientific standpoint must be met by an answer from a 
like point of view. 329 

Gorres, therefore, took upon himself the task to dis- 
cover and to point out the exact line of demarcation, as 
far as that is possible, where the realm of the merely 
natural ends and that of grace begins. As to Pere Poul- 
ain 330 in our own days, so to Gorres the interior life ap- 



328 In the Vorrede (preface) of Vol. II, p. IV, of his "Mystik," 
Gorres asks: "When has a book appeared in these our days, 
which, leaving higher considerations aside for the present, has in 
the interest of science alone sought to explain this variety of most 
remarkable and far-bearing events ; facts, acts, and experiences 
which give us an insight into the interior recesses of the soul and 
lay open its most hidden nature; and not only of the soul but also 
of the physical organism of man. and throw thus the greatest 
light on metaphysiology and metapsychology ? These materials 
have lain scattered about openly, yet no one has thought it worth 
while to stoop and collect them. In vain has the rich harvest 
presented the nodding ears, no one would take the trouble to ap- 
ply the sickle. For the learned put their heads together and de- 
cided that the miraculous phenomena were all false, mere jug- 
glery, or the hallucinations of superstitious imaginations, and that 
it would be contemptible and ridiculous to give the matter as much 
as a thought." Gorres finds it wholly unscientific to throw aside, 
as false, material which has stood the test of centuries, without 
first giving it a scientific and open and fair investigation and ex- 
amination. (Translated). 

329 Cf. Ibid., Vol. I, p. Ill fr. (Vorrede). 

330 Cf. Poulain, A. P. A., "The Graces of Interior Prayer," Lon- 
don and St. Louis, iqii (trans, by Leonora L. Yorke Smith), p. XI 
(preface), and "Christliche Mystik," op. cit, Vol. I, p. XVI f., and 
Book 1 and 2. See also Hamilton, Clarence Herbert, "A Psycho- 
logical Interpretation of Mysticism," Chicago, 1916, p. 8 f. 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 145 

peared to be a process, an orderly evolution, of which, by 
virtue of the greater advance in modern science, there 
can be outlined more exactly than ever its laws, and be 
pointed out more precisely its successive stages, — until, 
at last, with gathered strength and unerring aim, the 
soul is borne towards God beyond the range of our 
sight, — into a world still further withdrawn from sense 
than that found in the interior life of the ordinary de- 
vout Christian in his intercourse with his Maker, a world 
where, as said before, very few may enter, but where the 
chosen ones have a sight and feeling of God and enjoy 
His presence not less, but more really, than we appre- 
hend objects with our bodily senses. 

Having given in the preface of the first volume of his 
"Mystik" the reasons for issuing the work, Gorres pro- 
ceeds in the "Prodomus Galeatus" to tell us first of all 
what he understands by "Mystik" in general. "Mysti- 
cism," he says, "is an intuitional conception brought 
about through the mediation of a higher light, and a pro- 
cess and a mode of activity effected by means of a higher 
liberty; just as the ordinary way of knowing and doing 
is caused by the interaction of the natural spiritual light 
of the soul and the personal freedom implanted in 
it." 331 "This," he says, "is the shortest intelligent ex- 
pression of that which the subsequent pages (of his 
Mystik) are to prove and demonstrate." 

After a forceful allegory, 332 in which he mirrors Ra- 
tionalism in its works and adherents, Gorres gives a sur- 
vey of the field which he intends to cover. He starts out 
from the standpoint that there exist but two fundamen- 
tally distinct substances: one eternal, creating, yet iself 



331 "Die Mystik ist ein Schauen und Erkennen unter Vermitt- 
lung eines hoeheren Lichtes, und ein Wirken und Thun unter Ver- 
mittlung einer hoeheren Freiheit, wie das gewoehnliche Wissen 
und Thun durch das dem Geiste eingegebene geistige Licht, und 
die ihm eingepflanzte persoenliche Freiheit sich vermittelt findet" 
(Vol. I, p. 1). Gorres held that the highest kind of activity which 
our intellect is capable of, is not reasoning, but intellectual intui- 
tion. Cf. ibid., Vol. I, p. 53 f.; also Mivart, St. George, "The 
Groundwork of Science," New York, 1898, p. 253. 

332 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 1-11. 



146 CARRES' 'DIE CHRISTLICHE MYSTIK"' 

uncreated, — the Godhead (Gottheit), God; the other 
finite, non creative itself, but created by the former into 
its own image and likeness. A twofold life then 

individual, or "unum ens per s 
(jedes einzelne selbstaendige Geschoepf ) : — one essenti- 
ally self-centered, natural, and worldly; the other essen- 
tially expansive, spiritual, and divine. This latter life 
rightly caK-r -ince it has its root in God, the 

profound mysterium of all being*** 

Again, as God is one in essence, but three in person- 
ality, so is the world one in the Divine Mind which pro- 
duced it, but triune in its manifestation : the material or 
:ole world, the spiritual or invisible world, and the or- 
ganic world, which latter forms the link between I 

: and second. In man these three worlds : the ma- 
terial, the spiritual, and the organic, are so united as to 
form one single personality: — man being dreieinig in 
Einpersoenlichk- i : 

On this point Lacordaiir Bays,** 8 in answer to the Ra- 
tionalism which denies matter and the Rationalism which 
denies spirit. — "Between God Who is all, and nothing- 
..othing. there existed, as such, an infinite 
distance. This was to be filled by creation. : od, 

i m was to take two roads. — towards 
two e:: of things : towards nothingness by a 

graduated diminution in descending, towards God by a 
constant perfecting itself in ascending. This demanded 
two essentially dissimilar elements, matter and spirit: 
spirit which is indivisible and the element of the infini- 
tely great; matter, unceasingly divided and the element 
of the infinitely little: both, in their diverse natu 
sufficient to fill by their calculated elevation and de- 
gradation the infinite space which separates the supre- 



333 "C Vol. I. p. ii. 

334 Ct Ibid.. Vol. I. p. 12. Compare with these [ Reitf, 
P. F.. "Plotin und die deutsche Romantik, Euphorion," Le: 

PP- 59i-^ : - 
Lacordaire told his hearers that rationalism should never 
oppose to one single Christian dogma a negation more probable 
than the affirmations of faith. See Lacordaire, op. cit.. p. 124. 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 147 

mely imperfect from the supremely perfect. "Duo 
fecisti, Domine, unum prope nihil, scilicet Materiam 
Primam", says St. Augustine, "alteram prope te, scilicet 
Angelum" — "Thou hase made two things, God; one 
near to nothingness, which is primary matter; the other 
near to Thyself, which is pure spirit. Two series of being 
arise from this, one series descending on the side of 
nothingness, the other ascending towards God. The one 
we know by our senses, the other is revealed to us by 
faith. 

These two worlds, the material and the spiritual, radi- 
cally distinct in themselves, were not to remain separate, 
"FACIAMUS HOMINEM"! said the Lord,— and man 
appeared, participating in matter by which he became 
united to the inferior world, and in spirit by which he 
became united to the superior world; at the same time 
the body acting with the soul and the soul with the body, 
not as two beings, but as one only, — as one single per- 
sonality. This solved the mystery of universal unity. 
Placed in the lowest rank of the ascending line of beings 
and on the highest step of the descending line, concen- 
trating in his personality all the gifts of mind and all 
the forces of matter, he, man, by his presence stamps 
upon Creation the seal of unity, and with unity the 
seal of perfection. 336 

Man, now, in virtue of his dual nature, can, says 
Gorres, and science has confirmed it, extend the sphere 
of his normal activities in two directions: one in the di- 
rection of matter, the other in the direction of spirit. 
For mind and matter in man, although forming a sub- 
stantial unit, possess by divine ordination, each a degree 
of independence, — a certain power to determine, each for 
itself, the acts for which they, as a unit, are responsible ; 
i. e., man may make his corporal faculties the source and 
medium of his vital activities in such a manner as to ex- 
pand more or less, or all, his life forces in the interest of 
matter ; and in proportion as he does so he identifies him- 
self more and more with this element and renders him- 



336 Cf. Lacordaire, op. cit., p. 127 ff. 



148 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

self homogeneous with plant and animal propensities and 
lives a life analogous to that of the plant and the brute. 
On the other hand, he may so cultivate his spiritual facul- 
ties that the forces of his bodily activities become more 
or less, or altogether, undermined ; and, again, to the ex- 
tent as he does so, he identifies himself with the life of the 
soul or spirit alone, and renders himself homogeneous 
with spiritual propensities, — to lead a life analogous to 
that of spirits. 337 

Every such disturbance of man's dual activity and 
every displacement of the center of his life-forces from 
their habitual unison, to the exclusive use of either his 
material or spiritual capacities, puts him in an abnormal 
condition and makes his life and his manner of acting 
extraordinary, yet not unnatural. For, no matter to 
what heights man may climb in the sphere of the spirit- 
ual or to what depths he may descend in the scale of the 
material, he cannot call forth a play of forces the poten- 
tiality of which is not rooted in his human personality. 
Composed, as he is, of body and soul, he is governed by 
a double law, that of the soul or spirit and that of the 
body, or matter, and from the union of these two ele- 
ments there results a reciprocal relationship which can 
never cease. 338 

It being established that man can extend the sphere of 
his normal activities, there follows, according to Gorres, 
the other truth, that he may suspend his intercourse with 
the set of objects corresponding to one element in his 
dual nature and put himself in direct communication 
with the objects of the other. Here, then, we may seek 
for a glimpse of what is ordinarily understood by the 
term mysticism: — the condition of mysticism arises 
whenever an intrinsically intimate union of one object 
is entered into with another. All mysticism, whether in 
philosophy or religion, whether it be Christian mysti- 
cism, or magnetism, or diabolism, or magic, appears as an 
attempt, more or less successful, to come into the pres- 
ence of a something from the sight of which we are or- 



337 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 145 ff- 

338 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, p. 27-157 
liche Unterlage der Mystik). 



(Natuer- 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 149 

dinarily excluded by our subjection to the senses. This 
also follows from the very etymology of the word, the 
term being derived from the Greek root ' >v" which sug- 
gests the notion of closed up, shut up, from sense ex- 
pression; concealed, secret. Every so-called mystic re- 
gards the world as but a small fragment of a much larger 
whole, of a Beyond, from the realms of which he can 
obtain knowledge and experience foreign to and not 
within the ordinary reach of man. He seeks communica- 
tion with existences above and beyond the sphere of nor- 
mal human activities, whether they be personalities or 
forces; whether they be created or uncreated spirits, or 
merely the secret laws of nature. 339 

Gorres, accordingly, distinguishes two kinds of mysti- 
cism: nature mysticism and true or divine mysticism. 
If the object sought for is God, we have the latter; if 
something else the former. 

Nature mysticism Gorres again subdivides into exo- 
teric or physical and esoteric or psychical mysticism. 
Physical nature mysticism has its starting point and 
seat in man's inferior and organic nature, drawing down 
with it, however, his spiritual and superior faculties by 
virtue of the sympathy that exists between them, and 
enters into intercourse with the divers realms of the 
material world. This form of mysticism was predomi- 
nantly that of pagan antiquity, — of the augure, the sybil, 
the oracle, the magician, the scorcerer. 340 

Psychical mysticism, on the other hand, is the one in 
vogue in our own day, and reveals itself in such forms as 
hypnotism, animal-magnetism, clairvoyance, spiritism, 
and the like. It has its starting point and its seat in the 
spiritual faculties of man, whence it penetrates the su- 
perior nervous systems where it weaves, in a way, the 
mysterious bonds with which to place itself into imme- 
diate communication with the souls of the departed, as 
it is claimed, or with the innermost recesses of man's 
psychic life. 341 - 



339 Cf. Ibid., Vol. Ill, pp. Ill ff. (Vorrede) and 6 ff. 

340 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit, Vol. I, p. 13 f. 

341 Cf. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 14 f. 



150 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

All forms of nature mysticism have their resort in the 
sciences and constitute what may be called Practical 
Metaphysics. Modern Psychology holds it summed up in 
the doctrine of the so-called SUBCONSCIOUS or SUB- 
LIMINAL PERSONALITY, or, as Jung calls it, the 
LIBIDO OF THE ORGANISM. Here it finds, side by 
side, the sources of man's most animal instincts, his 
least explicable powers, his most spiritual intuitions : the 
ape and tiger, and the soul. Genius and prophecy, table 
turning and clairvoyance, hypnotism, hysteria, and 
Christian science — all are explained by the so-called sub- 
conscious mind. 342 

Nature mysticism is essentially profane. Each form, 
in its own way, places creatures in communication 
with each other without elevating them above their own 
level, nay, may render them utterly depraved. Not that 
it is anything bad in itself. Nature in all its various 
phases is the work of God, hence it can be neither evil in 
itself nor in its relation to man. God made all things 
good. Holy Scripture says, "And God saw all the things 
that He had made, and they were good." 343 Yet dan- 
ger lurked in nature mysticism from the day that sin 
entered the world and caused a separation between crea- 
tion and Creator. Thenceforth a new double principle, 
that of good and that of evil, existed in the universe : the 
one wholesome and conservative, the other malicious and 
direful, — affecting both the physical and the moral world. 
Thence order and disorder, confusion and harmony, death 
and life, the law of the flesh and that of the spirit, false- 
hood and truth, are in constant combat with one another 
everywhere and always. 344 

In the beginning when the soul was yet ihe unchanged 
image of the Divinity, and when the body, in a certain 
sense, reflected both the image and the vestige, the most 
perfect harmony reigned between the two elements in 



342 Cf. Underhill, E., "Mysticism," New York, 1911, p. 62 f. See 
also "The Psychoanalytic Review," Vol. V, October, 1918, p. 
345 f. Article: The Hound of Heaven, by T. V. Moore. 

343 Genesis : I, 31. 

344 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," I, p. 17. 



GORRES' "DDE CHRISTLICHE MYSTIK" 151 

man, the spiritual and material; because the soul, in a 
way, formed the body after its own image, and governed 
it with facility. But when sin destroyed in the soul the 
image of God, the divine imprint was equally destroyed 
in regard to the body. The soul now no longer rules over 
it as it did before, but must reconquer that dominion by 
long and constant struggle. 

St. Paul says, "For I am delighted with the law of God, 
according to the inward man. But I see another law in 
my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and 
captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my mem- 
bers." 345 

The Schism of the Fall, having primarily originated in 
the realm of spirits, brought about in the moral world 
the existence of the two cities, the City of God and the 
City of Satan, and man placed in the midst of them, is 
solicited by both: — by virtue of the free will, implanted 
into his soul, he can become an adherent of one or the 
other. It is in this alternative where lies the danger 
and risk of man in regard to nature mysticism. He 
may put himself into communication with the spirits of 
darkness or with the spirits of light, the former being 
connected by intimate bonds with the so-called Black Art 
or Sorcery, and the latter with the so-called White Art or 
Theurgy. 346 

Finally, there is the true or divine mysticism, which 
has its resort, not in the sciences, but in the Church, as 
said before, and is founded on love. "Taste and see that 
the Lord is sweet", says Holy Scripture. Similarly 
Schlegel says, and with him Gorres, "Mystik ist was 
allein das Auge des Liebenden am Geliebten sieht." S4T 
The Church in every period of her existence has had 



345 Romans, VII, 22-23. Balmes says : El pecado original es un 
misterio, pero este misterio explica el mundo entero" — Filosofia 
Fund., Vol. I, p. 535, Engl, ed., Vol. I, p. 489. Schlegel, in his "Phi- 
losophy of History" (Bonn's ed.), Lect. X, p. 279, expresses a simi- 
lar opinion. See also "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. Ill 
ff. (Vorrede). 

346 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, p. 18 f. Consult, 
ibid., Vols. 3, 4 ,and 5, in which Gorres endeavors to render in- 
telligible the night-side of the supernatural. 

347 "Athanaeum Fragment," 273 (op. cit.) 



152 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

amongst her children men and women of so lofty a wis- 
dom and with virtues of so extraordinary and heroic a 
character that the spiritual insight and the supernatural 
habits to be found among the faithful at large, are not 
in the least comparable with them in nature or effect. 
Divine Mysticism exalts and elevates man and renders 
him, so to say, Godlike, and therefore eminently fit for 
blessedness ; just as nature mysticism, in its worst phases 
at least, tends to drag him down to the level of matter 
and renders him depraved and like unto Satan, and there- 
fore particularly fit for perdition. 

Divine mysticism, too, may be regarded from a two- 
fold standpoint, since God may be considered in His 
Essence only, or as being united with the human nature 
in the Incarnation. Hence, here, too, we have, in the first 
place, a twofold mysticism: one, taking its departure 
from the Divine Essence, diffuses itself thence into life; 
the other, taking as a starting point the Logos, the 
Word made man, ascends thence towards the Divine Es- 
sence. The latter manifests itself under two divers 
forms, corresponding to the two natures of the Incarnate 
Word : one attaining its end through a more active life, 
the other through a more contemplative live. The 
other form of Divine Mysticism, — that attaching itself 
directly to the Divine Essence, is simple and serene as the 
latter is simple and serene, since sin has caused here no 
division. In each of these forms of mysticism, the world 
of nature and the world of spirit alike, lift the veil, as it 
were, which hides their mysteries from the view of the 
ordinary mortal. 348 

Gorres, unfortunately, did not live to carry out a plan 
of writing the real mystik, namely that of the highest 
union, by which the Logos Himself enters the Holy 
Trinity. 349 

Christian Mysticism, being, in its final analysis, a free 



348 Cf. "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, pp, 15-17. 

349 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 495 f. 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 153 

gift of God to the individual, differs, in its phenomena, 
with each individual mystic. But in each case, God not 
man, is the active force. No man, whatever be the 
merits of his sanctity, can initiate a life of the higher or 
divine mysticism in himself. 'The Spirit breatheth 
where he will." 350 The call for this life must come from 
above. But it is in the power of the soul to prepare her- 
self by the ascetic practices of the Christian life for this 
intimate union with her God. With Origen, Gorres 
holds, that we are indeed made according to the image 
of God, but our likeness to Him only exists potentially. 
The divine spark already shines within us, but it has to 
be sought for in the inner recesses of our soul. St. 
Augustine says, "Noli foras exire, in te ipsum redi; in 
interiore homine habitat Veritas ; et si animam mutabi- 
lem inveneris, transcendi te ipsum." 

As most writers on Christian mysticism, so Gorres 
divides the ladder of perfection, by which the mystic or- 
dinarily hopes to attain his end, into three distinct steps : 
the purgative life, the illuminative life, and the unitive 
life. Of the first stage Gorres treats in the third book 
of the first volume of his "Mystik," and of the other two 
in the second volume. 

The purpose of the purgative life is to eradicate every 
iniquity, root and all, from the soul. In the 23rd Psalm 
we read, "Who shall ascend into the mountain of the 
Lord: or who shall stand in His holy place? The inno- 
cent in hands, and clean of heart" Without holiness 

no man can see the Lord; — "Blessed are the pure of 
heart: for they shall see God." In the mystical life the 
work of sanctification goes forward, through extirpation 
of sin and evil and the spiritual upbuilding, to a degree by 
which charity is carried upwards to the very heights of 
excellence. It is for this reason that the mystical life is 
looked upon as the nursery of Christian heroes and the 
garden of heroic virtue. 

The illuminative life consists in the concentration of 
all the faculties of the soul: — will, intellect, and feeling, 



350 St. John, III, 8. 



154 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

upon God. It is a progress towards unification. The 
soul receives here grace upon grace, as she advances in 
perfection and learns more and more of the "Fulness of 
the Lord", until, finally, in the last stage, the Divine 
Vision unfolds itself in all its beauty to the soul, thus 
favored. 351 

From the historical standpoint, Gorres sees in the 
mystical life essentially a process of gradual purification 
and a progressive return to God, and that, not only in re- 
gard to the individual, but also as to mankind at large, 
and holds that not only each individual mystic, but also 
each age and each race produces its own kind of mysti- 
cism; — not indeed as something wholly new, no, for the 
Church is, with him, a living body, and so also the mysti- 
cal life within her ; — the peculiarity of a living organism 
is that it contains within itself the history not merely of 
its own existence but also that of all its ancestors : — the 
change being one conditioned by surrounding circum- 
stances. 532 

Mysticism has always yet been a potent instrument in 
the revival and conservation of religious belief. Its aim 
is not to convince nor to coerce; its propaganda is as a 
light shining in darkness, a fire that warms and kindles, 
but does not consume. The saints, in their higher mys- 
tical life, are to be for us the beacons erected and sus- 
tained by God Himself to point to that life beyond for 
which we are created, and to guard us against the dan- 
gers that lurk about in the Sea of Life, lest we should lose 
our way and suffer shipwreck, and never reach the des- 
tined port. 533 

A few words must be added in regard to the reception 
accorded the "Christliche Mystik" by the public. The 
criticism on part of the Catholics, on the whole, seems to 
have been favorable, although complaints were heard in 



351 "Perfecta haec mystica unio reperitur regulariter in per- 
fecto contemplative* qui in vita purgativa et luminativa, id est 
meditativa, et contemplativa diu versatus, ex speciali Dei favore 
ad infusam contemplativam evectus est." Benedict XIV, De Ser- 
vorum Dei beatific, III, 26. See also "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., 
I, 481-495. 

352 See "Christliche Mystik," op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 181-309. 

353 Cf. Ibid., Vol. II, p. 500. What Gorres says here of Maria 
von Mori is referable to all the Saints. 



gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 155 

regard to the philosophical briar-hedge, with which 
Gbrres surrounded the work. 354 However, it is just this 
scientific foundation which led to high commendations 
from competent judges. The famous physiologist and 
anatomist Doellinger (senior) says that the first book 
of volume one of Gorres' "Die Mystik" contains the best 
account of anatomy, especially of that of the brain, 
which had been written up to that time. Giovannelli 
says in regard to the same book, "Only a very efficient 
physiologist and anatomist will feel the full power of the 
proofs in all their entirety." 355 Diepenbrock writes of the 
work as a whole: "I have enjoyed the reading of "Die 
Mystik" immensely and it has proven a great spiritual 
benefit to me." Giovannelli says, "I know of no book which 
has given me greater satisfaction." In the "Katholik" we 
read, "It is a work all-embracing, magnificently rising 
upward, like a Gothic cathedral, from the lowest depth of 
nature to the highest height of spirit, but not easily un- 
derstood on account of the profound learning and the 
figurative representation." 356 Saint-Foi says, "One is 
amazed in reading the work, at the extent and the variety 
of the author's knowledge." 357 

The Rationalists were furious, as was expected, be- 
cause the work was a decisive blow to their superficial 
doctrines in religious matters. Yet, even such men as 
Dr. Rosenkranz, a highly cultured Hegelian, could not but 
give expression of his admiration for the work, although, 
of course, he considered the whole thing, in the end, but a 



354 See Schellberg, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 544. Letter to Giovan- 
nelli, May 15, 1843. 

355 "Nur ein tuechtiger Physiolog und Anatom wird die ganze 
Kraft der Beweisfuehrung vollen Umgangs fuehlen," — Galland, op. 
cit., p. 491. 

356 "Es ist ein Werk — Alles umfassend, grossartig aus der tief- 
sten Naturtiefe in die hoechste Geisteshoehe aufsteigend, wie ein 
gothischer Dom; aber nicht leicht verstaendlich wegen der im- 
mensen Gelehrsamkeit und der bilderreichen Darstellung." Cf. 
Ibid., p. 499 f. 

357 "On est effraye en effet, en lisant cet ouvrage, de V etendue 
et de la variete des connaisance de 1' auteur." Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 5. 



156 gOrres' "die christliche mystik" 

"poesie" and a "legend." 358 "No antagonistic attack," says 
Galland, "that has been brought against it, has, as yet, 
been successful ; and he regards it, up to this time (1876), 
as the first and only attempt towards a complete history 
of Mysticism, besides that of Dionysius the Areopagite, 
Scotus Erigena, and the Scholastic Mystics. 359 And, in- 
deed, notwithstanding the errors contained in the work, 
the "Christliche Mystik" must be looked upon as a great 
intellecual monument of human endeavor. 360 



358 Cf. Rosenkranz, "Studien," Leipzig, 1848, Part V, pp. 100- 
121. Here are found a collection of objections raised against the 
work. Cf. also, Werner, op. cit., Vol. V, p. 790 f. 

359 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 501. 

360 Riccarda Huch, in her "Ausbreitung und Verfall der Ro- 
mantik," op. cit., p. 243 f., says, "Ein Monument von erhabener 
Pracht hat Gorres in seiner christlichen Mystik der Kirche er- 
richtet." 



INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 157 

CHAPTER X. 
INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER HIS DEATH. 

In 1856 Julian Schmidt wrote that "his (Gorres') real 
import does not correspond to the fame which his name 
has attained." "His (idem.) writings have been much 
read and have made confused minds still more confused, 
but they are now almost forgotten." 361 On New Year's 
Day, 1860, Frank Balderich wrote: "The name 'Joseph 
von Gorres' is known to every German ; every one knows 
that the name belongs to a distinguished son of the father- 
land, but not everybody knows the spiritual greatness 
(den geistigen Reichthum) of the man, and many do not 
understand the peculiarity of his singular power." 362 

How, indeed, could a man be forgotten, or if so, re- 
main forgotten, of whom a Haneberg has truly said: 
"Gorres has died, and no one needs to ask who this 
Gorres was. Not only in his native land, no, even far be- 
yond its boundaries is he known as a man of no common 
greatness. Germany knows him, Berlin knows him, 
Vienna knows him, America 363 knows him. Everywhere 
the announcement of his demise was, or will be, received 
as an event of great significance. And this sympathy is 



361 "Seine (Gorres') wirkliche Bedeutung entspricht nicht dem 
Ruf, den sein Name erlangt hat" and "seine (idem.) Schriften sind 
viel gelesen worden und haben verwirrte Koepfe noch verwirrter 
gemacht, sie sind aber bereits verschollen." — Schmidt, Julian, "Ge- 
schichte der deutschen Literatur im iaten Jahrhundert," Leipzig, 
1856, Vol. II, p. 242 (translated). 

362 Frank, Balderich, Der alte Gorres als Kaempe fuer Deut- 
schlands Ehre und Recht, "Hist.-Politische Blaetter," Vol. 45 
(i860), p. 161 (translated). 

363 On March 20, 1848, a Solemn Requiem was celebrated for 
Gorres in Holy Trinity Church, Cincinnati, Ohio, with Rev. Hu- 
ber as celebrant and the Rev. Fathers Hammer, Liiers, and Ridder 
as assistants. The text for the sermon, delivered by Rev. Father 
Hammer, was taken from the Book of Wisdom, Chap. VII, 7-30,^ 
Wherefore I wished, and understanding was given me : and I call- 
ed upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came upon me, etc. In 
eloquent words expression was then given to the great things 
Gorres had done for God and Church, the fruits of which will yet 
be reaped and enjoyed by generations to come. (See "Hist.- 
Pol. Blatter," Vol. 21, pp. 728-734). 



153 INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 

not merely one as is ordinarily given to a savant. His 
word has been a living power, a shining banner (Panier) 
to which thousands have looked up in days of mighty up- 
heavals as one that may be safely followed.' 

X:. Gorres can never be forgotten. The power to 
inspire faith in the seriousness and goodness of life, — 
faith in mankind and in oneself as to a capacity for truth 
and righteousness and love; — enthusiasm for all that is 
great in man and outside of man, as Gorres possessed it, 
is a dawn which sooner or later will merge into the ful- 
ness of day and shed its golden sunshine far and wide. 

Shortly after Gorres' death, in February, 1848, the 
third French Revolution broke out, and as the spa. 
from Paris fell, the Ger burst into flames, as it 

had been foreseen by Gorres. Liberals, radicals, and re- 
volutionists of every degree joined hands, as if by p re- 
cant ignal, in rebellions which shook those states 
to their very foundations. By the middle of March not a 
te in the whole of Germany had remained unaffected. 
Mettemich met his downfall as early as March 13, and 
Ferdinand I fled from Vienna; Louis I, of Bavaria (pa- 
tron of Goi i 3 forced to abdicate in favor of his son, 
Maximilian II : while other rulers, amongst them Fred- 
erick William IV of Prussia, hurriedly granted constitu- 
tions to appease the t 

In this general chaos, for a time now, Gorres seemed 
doomed to pass into oblivion. The methods of democ- 
racy, in their first encounters, bore with them the ten- 
dency to materialize everything, — to draw everything 
down to a common level. Ideas that lift and raise and 



364 Cf. "Hist.-Politische Blaetter." Vol. 21. p. 232 f. (Funeral 
S3 by Dr. Haneberg. F: Haneberg ad- 

monishes to follow and cultivate especially the following trai' 
the life of Gorres : 1. Love of truth. 2. Readiness to make sacri- 
fices for the sake of truth. 3. Simplicity and naturalness in man- 
ra and mode of living. 4. Toleration (Duldung) of all that rests 
on true and noble Value- ieep religious convic- 

tion: — a cultivation of that Ideal of Humar -ansfigured in 

religion — jenes in der Religion verklaerte Ideal der Menschlich- 
keit (lb: - —all traits so utterly opposed to those peculiar 

to the spirit of Rationalism. 



INFLUENCE OF gOrRES AFTER DEATH 159 

elevate found no place here. The old world of chivalry, — 
the Knights of the Round Table, the brave Sir Galahads, 
had to recede once more from amongst the German peo- 
ple, as was the case wherever these methods ruled the 
day. With the banishment of the Sir Galahads, Faith, 
too, was banished, while Mysticism, the divine child of 
Faith and Reason, as Thorold 365 calls it, that once led the 
greatest of our race to heights of now scarcely imaginable 
intensity of living, had to be satisfied to be mixed up with 
the pattern of the sorcerer and the tireuse de cartes. 366 
All that Gorres had contended for, seemed well-nigh 
ruined, and his labors to have been in vain. 

But, happily, Gorres was to be ably represented, and 
his work carried on, in this crisis, by men such as Over- 
berg, Wittmann, Mallinkrodt, von Kettler, Windthorst, 
and others, — especially in the days of the so-called Kul- 
turkampf. And as Germany rose anew above the ma- 
terialism and frivolity of the age, there also came again 
into notice the lofty and eternal ideas of religion and his- 
tory and the memory of the glories of her better days, 
and with this awakening there grew also the fame and 
the influence of Gorres. His centenarium (1876) became 
for him verily days of triumph and of victory. Spoken 
and written word, tongue and pen, vied with each other, 
so to say, to sing his praise. 

"In Gorres we find combined," says Galland on the 
above occasion, "what we need in our own days: Faith, 
Hope, Love. Let us look up to him, who in life as well 
as in death has always proven himself the ever-wakeful 
Warden upon Germany's Observatory, and the warning 
Eckart to his brethren in faith." 367 

Diel says on the same occasion: "Deep religious faith 
and Christian fortitude frustrate in our days all attacks 
on part of the Liberals. But a great part of this deep- 
seated inner power and strength we owe to the endeav- 
ors and aims to which Gorres has given the best part of 



365 Thorold, Algar, "An Essay on Catholic Mysticism," London, 
1900, p. 1. 

366 Cf. Schmidt, Julian, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 94 and p. 90 ff. 

367 Cf. Galland, op. cit., p. 662 (translated). 



160 INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 

his life." 368 Even Julian Schmidt acknowledges that one 
would have to seek in the life of Gorres for the seed of 
the great Catholic movement that was then (1876) 
sweeping over the lajid. 369 

That the merits of Gorres were, and are, fully appre- 
ciated by his countrymen is also amply shown by the 
magnificent Gorres window in the Cologne Cathedral, in 
which mansion of the Lord the spirit of Gorres took de- 
light to linger so frequently during the days of his earthly 
pilgrimage. Below the window is written: "Catholicae 
veritatis in Germania defensori glorioso, nato Confluent, 
1776, denato Monachi, 1848." 370 The movement for a 
commemoration of Gorres' name in the above Cathedral 
was made on July 14, 1851, by Guido Gorres, Ernst von 
Lassaulx, and Franz Streber, and the application signed 
by ninety names of distinguished personages. 371 

Then, there is the great "Gorresbau" in Coblenz, 
erected in 1866 by the Catholic Reading Society. Above 
its entrance are engraved the following words : 

"Dies Haus das steht in Gottes Hand, 
Zum Joseph Gorres ist's benannt." 

"This house rests in the Hand of God, 
In honor of Gorres, called." 

But above all, credit is given to Gorres, and his influ- 
ence insured, by the establishment of the "Gorres- 
Gesellschaft zur Pflege der Wissenschaft im katholischen 
Deutschland," through which his works and ideals are 
to be continued and fostered, and brought home anew to 



368 Diel, J. B., "Zum Centenarium Josephs von Gorres, Stim- 
men aus Maria-Laach," Vol. 10, p. 260 (translated). 

369 Cf. Ibid., p. 1. 

370 The window was planned by Hess and others, and repre- 
sents Gorres in the blue gown of the philosophical faculty, hum- 
bly kneeling at the feet of the Blessed Virgin with the Christ- 
Child. Near him stands St. Joseph, his patron saint, and below 
are St. Boniface and Charlemagne, to symbolize his idea regarding 
the relationship between Church and State. (Cf. Galland, op. cit., 
p. 658 f.) 

371 Cf. "Historisch-Politische Blatter," Vol. 28, pp. 134-137. 



INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 161 

the world. It was founded on the 25th of January, 1876, 
the centenary of Gorres' birth-day, previously referred 
to, and has its seat in Bonn. Like the great Master whose 
name it bears, it demands the cultivation of the sciences 
on a broad and liberal basis and according to Christian 
principles. Science, if it is to be a living thing must pro- 
duce life and infuse forms into life (es muss Leben erzeu- 
gen und Gestalten in das Leben hineinschaffen) , i. e., it 
must be inspiring, — it must give life an aim; in other 
words, it must be made the means of advancing Christ's 
kingdom on earth. Christ indeed searched the inner 
spirit, but He did not let it rest here. Freely He looked 
upon the world ; — freely He regarded the whole order and 
structure of it, the whole constitution of things in which 
man lives — the whole array of the conditions of our life, 
turning His attention away from nothing. Science, 
therefore, too, must be broad, must be deep — it must be 
nothing superficial or one-sided, as the Rationalists would 
have it. With the study of form and appearances there 
must be combined the study of the essences of things, and 
all be made subservient to the will of the Creator. 372 All 
things, are for life, and life is for the sake of truth and 
love, and truth and love are in God the infinite living re- 
ality. There can, therefore, be no contradiction between 
Revelation, as entrusted to the Church of Christ, and the 
results of true Science; faith and science rather assist 
and supplement each other, as we have shown in Chapter 
V. This thought imbues all of Gorres* writings, and 
forms also the foundation upon which are erected the 
aims and endeavors of the great Gorres-Gesellschaft, as 
is apparent from the preamble of its Statutes, as well as 
from the contents of the different publications, connected 



372 "Denn alle Wissenschaft," says von Hertling, "ist eine Got- 
tesgabe gegeben zu dem Zwecke, Got zu verherrlichen, nicht aber 
urn Gott und die von Christus gestiftete Kirche zu bekampfen."-^ 
Jahresbericht der Gorres-Gesellschaft fur 1908, p. 20. 



162 INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 

with its various activities. 373 The latter cluster around 
four great departments: Philosophy, the Natural Sci- 
ences, History, and Literature and Art, in all of which 
Gorres was so intensely interested and so prolifically ac- 
tive, in the days of his earthly career. 

Blake says, "Ages are all equal; but genius is always 
above the age", — and, therefore, seldom understood. 
"But", wrote Sepp in 1896, "a man like Gorres must not 
remain an enigma to coming generations. For ten years 
I have sat at his feet and I have, therefore, the right 
to say: A pioneer (Bahnbrecher) like him can only re- 
main unappreciated when looked upon from the view- 
point of but one faction. Thus says Hafis, the Persian 
Singer : — 

Ihn den Weisen 

Kannst Du nicht genug preisen. 

Die Worte aus seinem Munde 

Sollst Du zur Stunde 

Wie Perlen sammeln 

Und nachstammeln, 

Darnach handeln 

Und in seinen Fussstapfen wandeln." 374 

It was well then that Gorres was not to remain recon- 
dite. A writer speaks of him as the "Colossus of 
Rhodes", the "Pharos", the "Beacon of his Time". 375 
Relative to this Schellberg says, "As during his life so 
now (1913) he (Gorres) points out to us the eternal and 



373 Cf. Jahresbericht der Gorres Gesellschaft, Koln, 1009, pp. 9- 
11 and 16 (Salutatory address by the Rev. Hilpisch, and pp. 18-20, 
address by von Hertling). The latter says that the members of 
the Gorres-Gesellschaft, as disciples of the great Gorres, belong 
all to that class of Seekers after Wisdom of whom St. Bernard 
speaks, when he says: "Sunt, qui scire velint, ut aedificent, et 
caritas est"; and that many of them belong to those of whom the 
same Saint says : "Sunt, qui scire velint, ut aedificentur, et pru- 
dentia est." (Ibid., p. 99). 

374 Sepp, op. cit., p. XIV (Preface). 

375 Diel, op. cit., p. 732. 



INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 163 

constructive principles and ideals of the whole of life : — 
Truth, Right, Liberty, as based upon law and love, and 
laid down so strongly in the principles of Christian 
Mysticism. To do right and practice justice, to find the 
right relation between ruler and people, between the op- 
posing states of life (the spiritual and the secular), be- 
tween the multitude of conflicting ideas, between the 
selfishness of the individual and the demands of the 
whole : — these are also the needs of the present day, and 
in these needs Gorres ought not to be refused as an ever 
ready assistant, guide, and leader. He points out to us 
how man must turn from the confusion of contradictions 
towards the saving rock of the Higher Oneness, — to God 
as the foundation of Love and Justice, Freedom and 
Truth". 376 

"Gorres, however", to quote Schellberg again, "does 
not stand outside the law to which even the greatest is 
subject: many a thing that he has written is forgotten 
and deserves to be forgotten". "Yet", continues the 
same writer, "his writings contain values of life which 
also the present generation cannot do without, — they 
are a spiritual fount from which it ought to draw 
freely". 377 

Thus, then, works Gorres today, as he did in the days 
of his life, in the capacity of one of the Magistri not only 
of Germany, but also of the world at large, — as Monitor 
in political as well as in ecclesiastical affairs, and as the 
eloquent leader of the masses, not indeed in the sense of 
the demagogue, for unlike the demagogue he did not 
stoop down to the masses, but lifted them up to his own 
sphere and showed them there the beauty that exists in 
that higher plane. 378 Eucken, therefore, lauds Schell- 
berg's edition of the "Gorres* Auswahl", to which we had 
occasion to refer so frequently in this dissertation, as 
having brought nearer to the people the man who, with- 



376 Cf. Schellberg, Gorres, op. cit, p. 43. 

377 Cf. Ibid., p. 42 f. 

378 Cf. Ibid, p. 44. 



164 INFLUENCE OF GORRES AFTER DEATH 

out question, exercised a great influence upon the national 
and the spiritual life of Germany. 379 

Let us close in the words of J. B. Heinrich, who wrote 
in 1867 : "In regard to spiritual power, depth, and uni- 
versality, he, Gorres, in no way stands below any one of 
the most famous geniuses of the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries, but in regard to purity and greatness 
of character and a mighty and wholesome influence upon 
his time and his people, he probably surpasses them 
all". 380 



379 See Ibid., p. 52 — Urteile ueber die "Gorres-Auswahl" (trans- 
lated). 

380 Op. cit., p. 1. 



CONCLUSION 165 



CONCLUSION. 

The foregoing pages reveal the fact that the results of 
intellectual philosophy really influence the masses more 
than do those of any other department of knowledge 
whatsoever, inasmuch as they bear most closely upon the 
very principles of the whole range of human activity, 
and elevate and depress, as the case may be, the general 
feeling or opinion as to the worth and sanctity of virtue, 
— as to the real import of life. Religious and moral, 
social and political life, all depend upon the kind of phi- 
losophical pillars or principles on which the whole struct- 
ure rests. 

Dr. Turner, in speaking of the original laws in obedi- 
ence to which philosophy took the particular course 
which it did take in its historical development, says: 
"We have observed, for example, that a period of national 
enthusiasm and national prosperity is usually one of 
great activity, in particular of great constructive activity, 
in philosophy". 381 Ancient Greece and Rome, indeed, saw 
their best days, and so did the Middle Ages, when their 
philosophy was at its best ! 

This follows from the very nature of philosophy itself. 
Owing to its breadth of vision and the freedom of its 
thought, it can most readily press forward to funda- 
mental facts and to a contemplation of things "sub specie 
aeterna", and is thus able to lift our lives above the mere 
stream of things, and to give it a solid basis. 

True, the masses of mankind do not trouble them- 
selves with philosophical problems : — they leave these to 
the master minds. However, the results of the latter's 
reflections, embodying themselves, as they do, in the form 
of general principles, spread themselves downward from 
mind to mind, according to the law by which thought is 
propagated, 382 until thousands act upon them every day 



381 Op. cit, p. 656. 

382 Cf. Morell, J. D., "History," op .cit., p. 26 ff. 



166 CONCLUSION 

of their life, to whom indeed, strictly speaking, all phi- 
losophical thinking is completely foreign. The people of 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had no difficulty 
in laying hold of what we may term the formulas of the 
philosophies that had emanated from Bacon, Descartes, 
and Locke, and were transmitted to them through Spinoza 
and Hume, Condillac and Cabanis, Kant and Hegel, Hux- 
ley and Feuerbach. And if we, in our own days, perceive 
a serious lowering of the level of the inner spirit life, nay, 
an impoverishment of life in the midst of amazing peri- 
pheral progress, of undreamt of technical accomplish- 
ments, of an overwhelming wealth of outward success 
without an equal wealth of real values of life, upon what 
shoulders must the burden be laid other than upon the 
low standard of philosophical thinking ! 

All true philosophers occupy themselves with questions 
such as these: Are there two natures in man? If there 
is but one, is it or matter? If there are two. do 

ideas come by the senses or do they spring up in the 
mind ? Or, in truth, are they not rather a mixture of the 
action of external objects upon us and of the internal 
faculties we possess? The soul and nature, icill and 
livide the dominion of existence, and, accord- 
ing as we place the force within ourselves or without, 
are we sons of heaven or slaves of earth. 

The value of life for each one of us is determined by 

the self, which makes man what he is ; and the self is fed 

and fashioned by what he ponders, admires, loves, and 

does. If man lives for the material only, he has no true 

self, since the self is essentially spiritual! If he lives 

-ervient to instinct and appetite he has but an animal, 

an apparent self. The element of the true self is moral 

freedom, which is born of obedience to reason and con- 

. but these exist for those alone who live in con- 

us communion with the Eternal Creative Spirit. 

Philosophy, then, to have a wholesome effect, must hold 
"the golden mean" between the spiritual and the material, 



CONCLUSION 167 

as De Wulf expresses it, and as it was also held and 
taught by Gorres, and as he is continually teaching it 
through the Gbrres-Gesellschaft. It must lay down the 
true relations between faith, grace, and religion, on the 
one hand, and reason, nature, and morals, on the other; 
thus, as it were, fulfilling the words of our great Master, 
to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and 
to God the things that are God's". 383 



383 Cf. De Wulf, M., "Scolasticism Old and New" (trans, by P. 
Coffey), Dublin and London, 1910, p. 317. 



168 BIBLIOGRAPHY 



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